I 


UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


SCHOOL  OF  LAW 
LIBRARY 


SPEECHFS 
of 


JEFFERSON  CHANDLER 

Ml 


St.  Louis 

Buxton  &  Skinner  Stationery  Company 
1890 


T 


CONTENTS 


Speech  delivered  in  the  Pickwick  Theater, 
April  1,  1890,  in  response  to  a 
numerously  signed  call  by  prominent 
Democrats  of  St.  Louis. 
o  , 

Address  delivered  at  Trenton,  Mo.,  July  h,  1890, 
•o 

»   Speech  before  the  Washington  State  Association 
of  Democratic  Societies  at  Tacoma, 
August  27,  1890. 

Argument  before  the  Committee  on  Post- 

Offices  and  Post-Roads  of  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States  against  pending 
bills  to  exclude  business  communica- 
tions of  lawful  state  corporations 
from  the  United  States  mails,  and  to 
establish  by  Congress  a  censorship  of 
the  press. 


OF 


JEFFERSON  CHANDLER, 


Candidate  for  the  United  States  Senate, 


DELIVERED    IN    THE 


PICKWICK    THKATKR, 


APRIL    1,    1890, 


IN  RESPONSE  TO  A  NUMEROUSLY  SIGNED  CALL  BY  PROMINENT 
DEMOCRATS  OF  ST.  Louis. 


ST.    LOUIS: 

BUXTON    &    SKINNER     STATIONERY    COMPANY, 

iseo. 


ST.  Louis,  March  22,  1890. 
Honorable  Jefferson  Chandler,  St.  Louis  : 

DEAR  SIK— We,  the  undersigned,  recognizing  your  eminent  abilities, 
respectfully  request  you  to  favor  us  and  the  people  of  this  city  with  an 
address  upon  the  political   issues  and  economic  questions  of  the  day. 
Awaiting  your  early  reply  and  naming  the  time  and  place,  we  remain, 
Respectfully  yours, 


EDW.  A.  NOONAN, 
W.  H.  MAYO, 
J.  H.  BEDELL, 
S.  C.  BUNN, 
A.  C.  CASSIDY, 
WM.  C.  CLEMSON, 
J.  B.  McCORMICK, 

A.  J.  GOODBAB, 

B.  B.  SOUTHER, 
B.  F.  STEELE, 
GEO.  M.  BRANCH, 


I>.  H.  ARMSTRONG,  A.  P.  STOI>DABI>, 

B.  C.  PATE,  P.  J.  CABMODY, 

Hy  C.  BBOCKME*ER,    D.  C.  HOBNSBY, 


JOHN  B.  THOMAS, 

E.  M.  BOSLEY, 

F.  W.  MATHIAS, 
D.  P.   O'BBIEN, 
C.  W.  PEARSON, 

H.  W.  WESTBROOK, 
W.  G.  BUCHANAN, 
W.  W.  THOBNTON, 


COBTEZ  A.  KITCHEN,    ARTHUR  LEE, 


JAS.  E.  YEATMAN, 
R.  B.  SWIFT, 
SOL.  G.  KITCHEN, 
WM,  M.  SIMPSON, 
W.  G.  BROWN, 
GEO.  W.    LUBKE, 
WM.  A.  MEAGHEB, 
CHAS.  G.  GONTER, 
MURRY  CARLETON, 
JOHN  McCAFFERY, 


JAS.  J.  SPAULDING, 
H.  AMES, 

w.  MCCLELLAND, 

JOSEPH  BBOWN, 
MARK  A.  SHIPLEY, 
T.  W.  HACKETT, 
J.  R.  CLAIBOBNE, 
T.  J.  WOODWABD, 
W.  P.  MACKLIN, 
E.  F.   SHAW. 


W.  B.  STUBBLEFIELD,  BICHABD  HANLON, 


THOS.  C.  GRACE, 
W.  B.  NEILSON, 
T.  T.  HATHAWAY, 
JOHN  H.  O'MEARA, 
E.  C.  DONK, 
JOHN  J.  O'NEIL, 
WM.  FREUDENAU, 


G.  C.  WRIGHT, 
F.  G.  FLANAGAN. 
JOHN  CULLINANE, 
JSO.  P.  BOOGHER, 
J.  W.  BEBGFELD, 
JNO.  S.  BBOWN, 
THOS.  E.  STBIBLING, 
B.  PIKE, 

THOS.  A.  BUSSELL, 
W.  P.  BENTLEY, 
JOSEPH  D.  LUCAS, 
ALEX.   CUDMORE, 
ANDREW  HALEY, 
A.M.SULLIVAN, 
BOBT.  M.  JENNINGS, 
J.  L.  LETT, 

w.  A.  MCCLELLAND, 

JOHN  J.  O'BBIEN, 

JOHN  MABTIN, 

JNO.  C.  OLIVER, 

W.  H.  HUMPHREYS, 

O.  P.  YATES, 

W.  S.  ABBOTT, 

W.  H.  LEE, 

ED  BUTLEB, 

EDW.  B.  FEUEBBORN, 


CHARLES  CLARK, 

JOE.  WEBER, 

M.  A.  WOLFF  &  CO., 

H.  L.  EDMUNDS, 

THOS.  E.  BARRETT, 

JAS.  J.  CARLISLE, 

MICHAEL  K.  McGRATH,  and  others. 

ST.  Louis,  March  24,  1890. 

Messrs.  Edward  A.  Noonan,  David  H.  Armstrong,  Henry  C.  Brock- 
meyer,  and  the  above  named  gentlemen :  I  take  pleasure  in  complying 
with  your  request  and  denote  Tuesday  evening,  April  1,  as  the  time,  and 
Pickwick  Theater,  on  Washington  and  Jefferson  Avenues,  as  the  place 
for  such  address.  Respectfully  yours, 

JEFF   CHANDLER. 


SPEECH  OF  JEFFERSON  CHANDLER. 


Mu.  CHAIRMAN  AND  FELLOW-CITIZENS: 

The  Democratic  party  in  former  years  was  the  great  intellectual  force 
of  the  country.  Its  primacy  in  politics  was  admitted.  Its  theories  of 
government  are  graphically  set  forth  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
and  later  in  the  constitutional  system  under  which  we  live.  This  system, 
the  first,  built  upon  Democratic  foundations,  expresses  the  ripest  wisdom 
of  the  world.  For  three-quarters  of  a  century  the  country  developed 
under  Democratic  control  to  a  degree  unparalleled  in  history.  By  its 
matchless  diplomacy  it  added  vast  territory  to  the  possessions  of  the 
Union  which  was  subsequently  admitted  into  the  family  of  States  upon 
terms  of  equality  with  all  the  others. 

The  Louisiana  purchase  was  made  by  Jefferson,  including  all  that 
country  west  of  the  Mississippi  not  occupied  by  Spain,  as  far  north  as  the 
British  territory,  and  contained  the  States  of  Arkansas,  Iowa,  Kansas, 
Louisiana,Minnesota,  Missouri,  Nebraska  and  Oregon,the  Indian  Territory, 
the  Dakotas,  Colorado,  Idaho,  Montana,  Washington  and  Wyoming.  Ohio 
came  into  the  union  under  Jefferson ;  Louisiana,  Indiana  and  Mississippi, 
under  Madison.  Illinois,  Alabama,  Maine  and  Missouri,  under  Monroe. 
Arkansas  and  Michigan  under  Jackson.  Florida  under  Van  Buren. 
Wisconsin  under  Polk.  Minnesota,  Oregon  and  Kansas  under  Buchannan. 
The  Democracy  also  acquired  an  immense  region  of  country  lying  on  the 
Pacific.  In  its  prime,  before  the  war,  its  aggressiveness  and  progres- 
siveness  was  the  admiration  of  the  world. 

Over  all  its  centers  of  thought  floated  the  flag  of  forensic  liberty.  It 
held  out  equal  opportunities  to  the  young  men  of  the  country.  If  they 
possessed  the  impulses  of  genius,  or  felt  an  interest  in  public  affairs, 
they  were  welcomed  to  a  free  appropriation  of  opportunities  for  advance- 
ment. It  made  itself  invincible  by  exciting  in  its  favor  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  best  blood  in  the  country.  The  flag  of  the  country  was  its  flag, 
the  growth  of  the  country  was  its  growth,  and  its  ranks  were  recruited 
from  those  who  made  the  doctrines  of  liberty  a  study. 

Missouri  came  into  the  union  soon  after  the  Democracy  began  its 
career.  This  State  was  peopled  by  the  purest  type  of  Democracy.  It 
possessed  a  genius  in  its  public  men,  coming  to  it  from  the  North  and 


South  alike,  undimraed  by  comparison  with  that  of  any  other  part  of 
the  Union.  From  the  beginning  of  its  history  it  has  continued  Demo- 
cratic whenever  its  people  were  allowed  to  vote.  Its  politics  were  un- 
corrupted  by  money  and  was  free  from  dictation. 

While  these  conditions  of  equality  prevailed  the  party  grew  with  the 
growth  of  the  State.  Its  majority  increased  as  enlightenment  became 
more  general  and  population  more  numerous.  To-day,  however,  the  party 
is  weighed  down  with  the  languor  of  threatened  dissolution. 

Its  splendid  ambition  is  clouded,  its  dicipline  impaired,  and  its 
chivalry  broken.  The  reign  of  reason  is  overthrown  and  in  its  place  is 
enthroned  the  boss. 

In  1884  this  State  gave  a  majority  for  President  of  about  thirty  thou- 
sand. In  1888,  though  the  same  candidate  was  again  before  the  people, 
sustained  by  the  prestage  of  a  splendid  administration,  the  majority 
shrunk  to  2,500.  St.  Louis,  always  theretofore  reliably  Democratic,  gave 
an  opposition  majority  of  nearly  ten  thousand.  The  increased  vote  of 
the  State  between  1884  and  1888  was  eighty  thousand;  of  this  increase 
the  Democrats  secured  twenty-six  thousand,  and  the  opposition  fifty-four 
thousand.  On  the  gubernatorial  vote,  the  opposition  to  the  Democratic 
party  cast  six  thousand  more  votes  than  were  received  by  the  Demo- 
cratic candidate. 

The  cause  of  this  decay  is  the  assumption  by  a  combination  of  men  in 
this  State,  supported  by  a  flighty  and  unscrupulous  newspaper,  that  they 
own  the  party.  This  combination,  with  its  headquarters  at  St.  Louis, 
meets  in  star-chamber  seclusion  to  select  among  the  members  thereof 
candidates  for  the  most  desirable  offices  to  be  filled.  The  newspaper 
part  of  the  combination  is  used  as  a  brutal  bludgeon  to  suppress  com- 
petition. High-minded  men,  though  not  naturally  timid,  shrink  from 
billingsgate  and  oppressive  politics.  They  abate  their  interest  in  a  party 
dominated  by  intrigue. 

This  is  not  the  time  for  such  politics.  Society  is  shaken  throughout 
by  agitation.  There  is  more  reading  and  original  thinking  done  at  this 
time  than  at  any  previous  period  in  our  history.  Old  political  practices 
are  under  re-examination;  organizations  of  men  exist  everywhere  to  help 
each  other  think.  Knowledge  is  pouring  in  upon  the  world  from  every 
quarter.  How  impotent  then  is  it  at  this  time  to  combine  against  the 
power  of  accumulated  knowledge. 

Pure  Democracy  consists  in  preserving  the  individual  from  oppression. 
It  secures  freedom  of  thought  and  of  speech ;  it  preserves  the  right  to 
life,  liberty,  property  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  The  government  is 
a  guarantee  by  all  men  that  each  individual  shall  rest  secure  in  his 
rights  and  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  own  industry.  Democratic  philosophy 
describes  an  area  of  personal  liberty,  within  which,  each  individual  is 
his  own  governor.  Within  that  area  of  personal  liberty,  his  own  judg- 
ment is  supreme,  and  the  State  cannot  rightfully  dispute  with  him,  how 
he  shall  govern  himself.  This  philosophy  declares  that  governments  are 


instituted  to  secure  to  man  the  endowments  received  by  him  from  his 
Creator,  and  that  when  governments  cease  to  do  this,  their  authority 
ceases.  The  first  principle  of  this  philosophy  assumes  that  the  fac- 
ulties of  the  human  mind  cannot  discharge  their  functions  as  long  as 
their  freedom  is  denied.  Hence,  free  thought  and  free  speech  are  the 
jewels  of  Democracy. 

In  a  Democratic  government,  each  individual  exercising  the  elective 
franchise  is  a  trustee  in  part  of  the  great  political  estate,  descended  to 
us  from  our  ancestors.  This  trust  is  not  in  behalf  of  himself  alone,  but 
extends  to  all  beneficiaries  of  the  government,  whether  they  are  eligible 
under  the  law  to  vote,  or  not.  This  trust  cannot  be  bought  or  sold.  It 
cannot  be  perverted  or  corrupted  in  any  individual  instance  without 
injury  to  the  whole  estate.  The  great  offices  created  by  the  Constitution 
and  laws  are  executive  instruments  of  this  trust.  In  them  no  one  has  a 
private  right  beyond  the  specific  period  for  which  he  was  chosen  to 
office.  Neither  can  one  justly  use  the  official  influence  of  one  office,  to 
procure  for  himself  another. 

These  propositions  being  true,  it  follows  that  whenever  a  set  of  men 
combine  among  themselves,  while  in  office,  and  with  newspapers,  to  use 
their  joint  influence  to  parcel  out  among  themselves  the  principal  places 
of  political  power  for  the  future,  and  agree  with  each  other  to  brow- 
beat and  slander  all  who  do  not  agree  in  design  with  them,  they  are 
enemies  of  Democracy.  It  does  not  matter  how  vehemently  or  boister- 
ously they  may  lay  claim  to  be  Democrats.  The  test  of  Democracy  is 
found  in  loyalty  to  the  principles  of  Democracy,  and  not  in  adopting  the 
name  of  Democrats  to  overthrow  the  principles  of  liberty. 

The  press  is  recognized  by  our  constitutional  system  of  government 
as  a  great  power  for  good,  and  hence  its  freedom  is  guaranteed.  The 
constitutional  guarantee,  however,  must  be  construed  in  harmony  with 
the  scheme  of  government,  of  which  that  guarantee  forms  a  part.  The 
guarantee  of  freedom  of  the  press,  being  a  part  of  a  government,  whose 
endurance  depends  upon  free  speech  and  pure  elections,  cannot  be  con- 
strued to  permit  newspapers  to  become  members  of  a  conspiracy  to 
subvert  free  speech  and  to  destroy  pure  elections.  Nor  does  such 
guarantee  uphold  newspapers  in  vulgar  and  false  assaults  upon  indi- 
viduals. Papers  prosecuting  a  career  of  venality  and  vulgarity,  do  not 
come  within  the  constitutional  guarantee. 

The  very  essence  then  of  political  power  in  this  country  is  absolute 
fearlessness  of  the  citizen  to  discuss  the  welfare  of  the  community  of 
which  he  forms  a  part.  Democratic  government  cannot  subsist  without 
this.  He  who  destroys  it  is  an  incendiary  in  politics. 

RACE  ISSUE  AND  THE  SOLID  SOUTH. 

For  years,  the  Solid  South  has  been  the  political  topic  most  discussed 
by  the  Republican  party.  The  Southern  people  have  been  held  up  to  the 
observation  of  the  American  pubic  as  contumacious,  and  as  cherishing  a 


—  6  — 

lingering  resentment  to  the  government  itself.  The  only  basis  of  fact 
for  this  charge  is  that  the  South  has  not  sympathized  with  the  legisla- 
tion enacted  by  the  Republican  party  against  it.  It  has  opposed  acts  of 
Congress  with  great  persistency  which  violated  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  An  analysis  of  the  situation  will  show  this. 

State  and  Federal  Governments  are  dedicated,  in  their  unity,  to  two  sov- 
ereign objects.  First,  to  personal  liberty,  and  second  to  local  self-gov- 
ernment. The  latter  is  built  into  and  made  a  part  of  the  constitutional 
system  in  which  personal  liberty  is  denned,  and  is  the  means  by  which  the 
former  is  preserved.  Personal  liberty  and  local  self-government  are  so 
unified  in  our  civilization  that  one  cannot  survive  the  downfall  of  the 
other.  The  latter  is  the  means  of  preserving  the  former.  Hence  the 
Democratic  dogma  of  State  sovereignty  in  the  domestic  affairs  of  the  State, 
is  a  constitutional  dogma,  and  holds  supremacy  in  the  politics  of  this 
country.  This  dogma,  if  obeyed,  gives  peace  to  the  country ;  the  denial 
of  it  produces  strife. 

The  Democratic  party  can  never  surrender  or  subordinate  this  great 
constitutional  doctrine  to  other  issues  without  deserting  Democracy  it- 
self. Race  controversy  springs  from  a  cultivated  contempt  for  this  dog- 
ma, and  for  State  and  local  authority.  The  Republican  party,  since  the 
war,  has  used  the  colored  race  to  overthrow  State  jurisdiction,  and  to 
build  a  government  on  the  ruins  of  the  Federal  Union,  unknown  to  the 
Constitution.  This  can  be  demonstrated  so  clearly  that  its  truth  will  not 
be  denied.  This  scheme,  though  baffled,  is  not  yet  abandoned.  Until 
finally  frustrated  the  sovereign  issue  in  the  politics  of  the  country  will 
be,  not  a  tax  schedule,  but  the  preservation  of  local  and  constitutional 
government.  If,  as  is  stated  by  some  claiming  to  be  Democrats,  self- 
preservation  is  not  the  first  law  of  constitutional  government,  as  it  is  the 
first  law  of  nature,  but  that  taxation  is  the  chief  end  of  man,  then  inter- 
est in  constitutional  qiiestious  will  subside,  and  when  a  tax  schedule  is 
fixed,  Democracy  will  die. 

Whenever  race  conflict  and  local  disorder  have  appeared  in  the  South, 
since  the  war,  they  have  been  the  product  of  an  effort  to  subjugate  State 
governments  in  the  alleged  interests  of  the  negro.  When  reconstruction 
had  been  accomplished  the  Republican  party  feared  a  decline  in  its  ascend- 
ancy unless  it  could  secure  for  itself  for  all  time  the  colored  vote.  At  that 
time  the  races,  as  admitted  by  Senator  Ingalls  in  bis  late  speech  in  the 
Senate,  were  living  in  harmony.  There  was  no  existing  reason  why  that 
harmony  should  not  continue.  Both  races  lived  under  laws  which  ap- 
plied to  both  alike.  Had  the  races  co-operated  in  maintaining  the  laws 
free  from  outside  interference,  there  is  no  evidence  that  they  would  have 
divided  on  the  line  of  race.  It  is  said  also  by  Senator  Ingalls,  in  the 
same  speech  above  mentioned,  that  if  the  colored  man  would  now  vote 
the  Democratic  ticket,  there  would  be  no  race  conflict  in  this  country. 
This  proposition  is  true.  The  races  have  been  arrayed  against  each  other 
by  partisan  and  unconstitutional  legislation,  enacted  by  the  Republican 


party  to  secure  the  vote  of  the  negro.  The  races  being  in  harmony  be- 
fore this  legislation  was  enacted,  and  it  being  now  admitted  that  harmony 
would  still  prevail  if  the  negro  were  a  Democrat,  it  would  seem  to  follow 
that  the  influences  which  have  operated  upon  him  to  separate  him  from 
the  Democrats  are  the  cause  of  race  dissension.  It  is  believed  that  the 
legislative  and  j  \idicial  history  of  the  country  since  the  war  verify  this 
conclusion.  If  to  vote  the  Democratic  ticket  by  the  negro  would  extin- 
guish race  irritation,  as  is  stated  by  Senator  Ingalls,  then  the  present  dif- 
ferences between  the  races  is  political  only,  for  they  would  remain  distinct 
as  races  after  the  negro  became  a  Democrat.  The  Republican  party  be- 
gan its  political  operations  upon  the  colored  people  as  a  class,  to  divide 
them  from  the  white  Democrats  of  the  South  in  1870,  and  continued  this 
effort  from  that  time  down  to  the  election  of  President  Cleveland. 

In  1870  the  Republican  party,  then  being  in  supreme  control  of  the 
Federal  Government,  assumed,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
Government,  that  Congress  possessed  jurisdiction  over  the  election  ma- 
chinery of  the  several  States.  To  carry  out  this  assumption  Congress 
enacted  that  no  State  election  should  be  final  until  federal  officers  so  de- 
clared. This  legislation  attempted  to  transfer  to  the  Federal  Government 
final  decision  in  cases  of  State  elections  for  State  officers.  This  statute 
was  ostensibly  enacted  for  the  benefit  and  protection  of  the  colored  voters 
of  the  South.  It  had  a  double  effect  on  the  negroes.  It  operated  to 
degrade  the  State  in  their  opinion  and  to  convince  them  that  the  State 
could  not  be  relied  upon  to  do  them  justice,  and  that  their  only  hope  was 
in  the  Federal  Government,  administered  by  the  Republican  party.  Being 
thus  honestly  impressed,  they  became  solidly  Republican  and  contemptuous 
of  the  State  in  which  they  lived.  The  law  disclosed  to  the  whites  of  the 
South  the  fact  that  the  negro  was  being  used  as  a  means  of  dismantling 
the  State  and  the  substitution  of  Federal  authority  in  place  of  State 
authority,  under  circumstances  not  justified  by  the  Constitution,  as  they 
•understood  it.  Hence  the  white  race,  moved  by  devotion  to  Constitutional 
Government,  opposed  this  legislation.  Their  irritation  was  excited 
against  the  blacks  because  it  appeared  to  the  whites  that  the  blacks  were 
being  used  by  the  Republican  party  to  destroy  local  Constitutional  Govern- 
ment in  the  South.  Under  this  so-called  legislation  prosecutions  arose 
and  were  continued  throughout  the  entire  South.  For  a  period  of  more 
than  five  years  great  tumult  and  industrial  paralysis  prevailed,  at  the  end 
of  which  period  the  law  was  declared  unconstitutional.  The  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  composed  of  judges  appointed  exclusively  by 
Republican  presidents,  held  that  "The  statute  contemplated  a  most  im- 
portant change  in  the  election  laws.  Previous  to  its  adoption  the  States, 
as  a  general  rule,  regulated  in  their  own  way  all  the  details  of  the  election. 
They  prescribed  the  qualifications  of  voters  and  the  manner  in  which  those 
offering  to  vote  at  an  election  should  make  known  their  qualifications  to 
the  officers  in  charge.  This  act  interfered  with  this  practice  and 
prescribed  rules  not  approved  by  the  laws  of  the  States."  The  court 


—  8  — 

concluded  that  the  enactment  was  without  constitutional  support  and 
therefore  void. 

Later  on  the  Republican  party,  wishing  still  to  hold  the  negro  vote, 
attempted  to  extend  the  jurisdiction  of  federal  courts  in  cases  affecting  the 
colored  man,  to  acts  which  had  theretofore  been  exclusively  within  State 
jurisdiction.  This  later  enactment  was  presented  to  the  colored  people  of 
the  South  as  a  new  pretence  on  the  part  of  the  Republican  party,  that  they 
alone  were  the  friends  of  the  negro,  and  that  the  colored  man  must  look 
to  that  party  and  the  Federal  Government  for  protection.  This  legislation 
had  the  same  effect  to  array  the  races  against  each  other  as  the  first,  and  to 
add  to  the  distrust  in  the  mind  of  the  negro  of  State  governments,  and  to 
exasperate  him  against  the  whites,  who  universally  opposed  the  statute. 
The  whites  believed  the  pretended  law  a  violation  of  their  rights  and  were 
affected  by  it  as  they  had  been  by  the  previous  enactment,  and  contested 
its  validity  at  every  step.  During  the  agitation  over  it  the  South  was  most 
bitterly  denounced  for  its  opposition  to  what  the  Republicans  were  pleased 
to  call  salutary  legislation  in  the  interest  of  liberty.  This  statute  had  the 
same  practical  history  as  the  first.  It  filled  with  agitation  and  disquiet  a 
period  of  five  years  before  it  reached  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  when  and  where  it  was  declared  to  be  in  violation  of  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States. 

This  was  followed  by  what  is  known  and  remembered  as  the  Civil 
Rights  Bill,  which,  in  terms,  invaded  State  jurisdiction.  It  put  local 
transportation  companies,  theatres,  hotels  and  public  institutions  under 
legislative  and  judicial  control  of  the  Federal  government.  It  would  be 
wearisome  to  recite  the  incidents  of  bitterness  that  were  the  offspring  of 
this  legislation.  It  occupied  the  same  time  in  reaching  a  final  disposition 
as  the  other  enactments  had  respectively.  It  operated  in  the  same  way 
upon  the  blacks  and  upon  the  whites,  keeping  them  divided,  and  added  to 
the  bitterness  theretofore  prevailing  between  them.  When  it  reached  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  it  shared  the  same  fate  as  the  others, 
the  court  declaring  that  if  this  legislation  could  be  upheld,  it  would 
operate  to  subvert  State  authority  utterly. 

These  enactments  were  sanctioned  by  the  Republican  press,  and  the 
most  eminent  Republicans  in  the  United  States.  They  were  approved  by 
Republican  executives.  All  of  them  were  declared  to  be  revolutionary  and 
void  by  a  Republican  Supreme  Court.  If,  under  great  partisian  pressure, 
the  Court  had  sustained  them,  the  government  to-day  would  be  utterly 
changed  in  character  from  what  it  originally  was,  and  local  self-govern- 
ment throughout  the  Union  extinguished. 

The  proposition  now  pending  in  Congress  to  change  the  laws  relating 
to  the  election  of  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives  at  Washington, 
whereby  supervision  over  election  of  members  of  Congress  is  to  be  exer- 
cised by  the  Federal  government  instead  of  by  the  States,  as  heretofore,  is 
an  outgrowth  of  race  agitation.  Whenever  the  Federal  government  has 
attempted  to  extend  its  political  authority  into  matters  heretofore  lying 


—  9  — 

within  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  State,  this  has  been  done  with  an 
alleged  desire  to  protect  the  negro.  There  is  no  element  of  the  white  race 
whose  interest  is  promoted  by  destroying  local  self-government,  and  there 
is  no  occasion  to  abridge  State  authority  or  to  enlarge  Federal  power  in 
the  interest  of  the  white  race.  On  the  contrary,  local  self-government 
promotes  their  highest  and  most  rapid  development.  Centralization  is 
dreaded  by  the  white  race.  It  is  unsuited  to  that  race ;  neither  can  it  be 
best  for  the  black  race  living  in  the  same  communities.  The  fact  is,  the 
black  race  has  been  made  the  pretext  for  degrading  the  States,  and  this 
has  made  the  South  solid. 

If  the  native  American,  German,  Irish  or  other  distinct  body  of  people 
were  to  politically  solidify  themselves  against  a  great  constitutional 
principal  of  government,  such  conduct  on  their  part  would  result  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  kind  of  conflict  as  exists  between  the  whites  and  colored 
people  in  the  South.  There  cannot  exist  in  this  country  two  systems  of 
jurisprudence,  one  for  the  colored  and  one  for  the  white  man.  That 
which  is  best  for  the  white  man  is  also  best  for  the  negro.  A  union  of  the 
races  to  uphold  the  common  system  which  we  now  have,  will  extinguish 
race  anger.  The  negro  ought  to  realize  that  he  is  deeply  interested  in  the 
Union  as  it  now  exists.  He  cannot  destroy  the  States.  When  he  becomes 
convinced  of  this  fact,  and  that  the  Republican  party  has  never  fulfilled  a 
single  pledge  made  to  him,  but  has  pushed  him  into  disaster  in  the  South 
to  secure  the  colored  vote  in  Ohio  and  New  York,  he  will  adopt  the  remedy 
suggested  by  Senator  Ingalls,  become  a  Democrat.  This,  the  Senator 
says,  will  bring  him  peace. 

Remove  from  the  South  the  menace  of  Federal  interference  in  state  af- 
fairs, and  the  race  question  will  settle  itself.  The  South  is  quite  capable 
of  self-government.  There  has  never  been,  in  the  history  of  the  world, 
such  a  spectacle  of  heroism  and  of  recuperative  power  in  any  people  as 
that  manifested  by  the  South  since  the  war.  When  the  great  conflict  was 
over  the  inhabitants  of  that  region  occupied  an  area  of  desolation.  Con- 
federate currency  had  ceased  to  be  of  value ;  gold  and  silver  had  found 
their  way  out  of  the  country,  and  there  was  nothing  to  give  in  exchange 
for  Union  money.  A  numerous  crippled  soldiery  required  support  from 
private  bounty,  and  a  recently  emancipated  race  demanded  facilities  for 
education.  In  the  midst  of  a  revolutionized  industrial  system,  the  South 
turned  its  stricken  face  to  the  future  and  began  its  new  career.  Twenty- 
five  years  have  effaced  all  visible  signs  of  war.  Houses  have  been  rebuilt ; 
farms  stimulated  beyond  their  old  productiveness;  mines  opened  up; 
new  country  brought  into  an  exuberant  fertility ;  public  improvements 
have  kept  rapid  pace  with  private  enterprise.  Added  to  this,  the  South, 
though  assailed  by  furious  political  denunciation,  persisted  in  cloudless 
loyalty  to  constitutional  government.  In  a  successful  series  of  contests 
for  their  own  rights  she  procured  adjudications  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  saving  from  invasion  the  domestic  independence  of 
the  Northern  States,  whose  representatives  assailed  her  State  integrity. 


—  10  — 

The  Northern  States,  to-day,  owe  their  unimpaired  State  independence  to 
the  valor  of  the  Southern  people,  manifested  in  defending  their  own 
rights.  In  the  face  of  this  history  the  bloody  shirt,  that  scarlet  curse  of 
American  politics,  ought  to  be  furled  and  forever  hid  from  human  obser- 
vation. 

SILVER  COINAGE. 

The  Democratic  party  is  not  only  committed  to  the  preservation  of  the 
government,  as  defined  by  the  Constitution,  but  it  is  pledged  to  so  admin- 
ister it  that  no  constituent  power  thereof  shall  be  executed  to  enrich  one 
class  or  section  and  correspondingly  oppress  or  impoverish  another  class 
or  section.  To  illustrate :  The  Federal  Government  possesses  power  to 
coin  money  and  to  regulate  the  value  thereof.  This  power  if  ignorantly 
or  venally  used  may  produce  industrial  depression.  There  is  no  power  of 
the  government  more  vigilantly  watched  by  the  money  interests  of  the 
country  than  this,  nor  is  there  any  power  an  abuse  of  which  so  profound- 
ly disquiets  industrial  and  producing  interests.  The  power  to  regulate 
the  value  of  money  carries  with  its  exercise  the  regulation  of  the  value 
of  everything  that  money  represents.  Hence  if  there  is  an  unwise  or 
unfair  regulation  of  the  value  of  money,  every  producer  of  values  rep- 
resented by  money  suffers.  The  decrease  of  the  volume  of  the  circulat- 
ing medium  increases  the  quantity  of  products  and  of  labor  given  in 
exchange  for  money.  Contraction  of  the  necessary  volume  of  currency 
or  a  refusal  to  expand  the  volume  thereof,  to  keep  pace  with  the  increase 
of  population  and  the  demands  of  business,  is  protanto  confiscation  of 
property.  Farmers  and  producers  are  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  the 
abundance  of  gold  and  silver  hi  this  country.  The  rapid  increase  of  gold 
supply,  since  the  discovery  thereof  in  this  country,  raised  the  prices  of 
products  and  of  labor.  This  is  admitted.  A  decrease  of  the  supply  or  of 
the  coinage  thereof  would  have  an  opposite  effect.  It  would  have  been 
unjust  to  refuse  to  coin  gold  because  the  supply  increased.  The  result 
of  such  refusal  would  have  cut  off  the  farmer  and  producer  from  the  bene- 
fit of  the  increased  supply  and  the  consequent  increase  of  the  value  of 
products.  The  American  people,  as  a  body,  contributed  to  the  discovery 
and  development  of  the  precious  metals.  They  paid  for  the  territory  in 
which  they  are  deposited.  They  constructed  the  railway  system,  mostly 
at  public  expense  by  land  donations  and  government  bonds,  through  the 
great  mountain  region  where  gold  and  silver  are  found.  They  furnished 
the  pioneer  army  that  discovered  and  developed  them.  Every  individual 
living  under  the  American  flag  is  entitled  to  a  part  of  the  general  develop- 
ment and  progress  of  the  -country.  If  great  sources  of  wealth  are  dis- 
covered and  developed,  which  make  the  burdens  of  life  lighter  and  the 
necessaries  of  existence  cheaper,  it  is  a  crime  against  progress  to  limit 
the  good  effect  of  such  discovery  and  development. 

Missouri,  bigger  than  Belgium,  Servia,  Switzerland  and  the  Nether- 
lands ;  capable  of  maintaining  a  population  of  thirty  millions ;  situated  in 
the  heart  of  the  continent,  on  the  greatest  river  in  the  Union,  with  water 


— 11  — 

•communications,  if  improved,  with  the  outside  world;  possessing  a 
climate  unsurpassed,  a  soil  stronger  in  productive  energy  than  the  Valley 
of  the  Nile,  with  great  wealth  in  mineral  substances,  and  abounding  in 
products,  feels  the  burdens  of  taxation,  and  of  municipal  and  private 
indebtedness,  growing  heavier  upon  her  people  as  the  years  succeed  each 
other.  This  state  of  things  cannot  endure.  There  must  be  some  escape 
from  the  inequalities  that  weigh  the  people  down,  or  statesmanship  is  a 
failure.  Before  relief  can  come  to  the  producers  of  the  West,  the  special 
discriminations  and  hardships  under  which  they  operate,  must  be  under- 
stood. 

The  farmer  stands  in  a  peculiar  position,  under  the  law.  All  about 
him,  in  the  conduct  of  every  other  enterprise  than  farming,  corporations 
are  employed.  All  other  kinds  of  business  may  be  transacted  through 
and  by  them.  Corporations  have  been  generously  and  wisely*  created  by 
law  to  facilitate  the  investment  of  capital  in  new  enterprises.  They 
carry  in  their  very  constitution  the  privilege  of  exemption  to  the  stock- 
holders, from  personal  liability,  beyond  the  face  value  of  their  stock,  for 
the  debts  of  the  corporation.  If  the  enterprise,  taken  up  by  the  corpor- 
ation, succeeds,  the  stockholders  secure  profits ;  if  unsuccessful,  the  loss 
by  the  corporation  is  limited  to  the  value  of  the  stock  subscribed.  If 
corporations  mortgage  their  property,  and  become  unable  to  meet  their 
obligations,  a  readjustment  of  their  debt  and  a  reduction  of  interest  is 
generally  accomplished,  and  the  corporation  permitted  to  go  on  with  its 
business.  The  debt  or  interest  is  reduced  to  the  earning  capacity  of  the 
corporation,  and  relief  from  the  balance  secured  in  consequence.  This 
practice  affecting  corporations  has  become  also  an  unwritten  rule  of 
commercial  business.  Merchants  dealing  with  other  merchants,  in  the 
event  of  the  debtor's  inability  to  pay  his  full  indebtedness,  he  is  generally 
accommodated  with  a  reduction  of  the  debt,  and  allowed  to  continue  his 
credit.  This  plan  of  relief  is  worked  out  on  a  great  scale  through  general 
business  operations.  Persons  engaged  in  farming  are  cut  out  of  this 
relief  given  to  corporations  and  others.  If  they  have  unwisely  borrowed 
money  at  a  higher  rate  of  interest  than  they  can  possibly  pay,  the  law 
furnishes  them  no  shelter.  They  must  pay  the  entire  debt  or  give  up 
their  property.  If  the  times  are  hard  and  land  depressed  in  value,  an 
amount  equal  to  much  more  than  the  original  debt  may  be  sacrificed  to 
discharge  the  debt.  This  is  often  the  case.  Especially  is  this  so  under 
the  growing  depreciation  of  property  in  the  West,  at  this  time.  One's 
ability  to  pay  a  debt  depends,  of  course,  upon  his  ability  to  procure 
money  for  that  purpose. 

IF  THE  CIRCULATING  MEDIUM 

is  constantly  diminished  in  the  community  where  the  debt  must  be  paid, 
it  becomes  more  and  more  difficult  to  pay  the  debt.  It  is  assumed  that 
there  is  about  twenty-one  dollars  per  capita  of  circulating  medium  out 
among  the  people  in  the  entire  United  States.  If  this  medium  were 
equally  distributed  Missouri,  having  a  population  of  about  two  million 


—  12  — 

five  hundred  thousand,  would  possess  in  circulation  $52,500,000.  There 
is  no  means  of  ascertaining  with  accuracy  the  amount  of  money  per 
capita  in  actual  circulation  in  this  State.  The  railroads  of  the  State  are 
mostly  owned  in  the  East.  Their  net  earnings  last  year  were  about 
seventeen  millions  of  dollars.  Most  of  this  money  went  East,  where 
railroad  securities  are  held.  There  is  collected  in  this  State,  annually, 
about  seven  million  dollars  to  pay  internal  revenue  taxation.  That  goes 
to  Washington.  The  interest  on  State,  municipal,  railroad  and  farm 
indebtedness  amounts  at  least  to  about  eighteen  million  dollars  yearly. 
Most  of  this  is  sent  into  Eastern  markets,  where  the  indebtedness  is  held. 
A  large  amount  of  money  is  also  taken  out  of  the  State  annually  to  pay 
insurance  premiums  to  Eastern  insurance  companies. 

Under  this  constant  diminution  of  the  currency  the  amount  per  capita 
in  the  Easfis  constantly  increased,  and  the  amount  per  capita  in  the  West 
is  correspondingly  decreased.  It  is  doubtful  whether  there  is  to  exceed 
ten  dollars  per  capita  in  circulation  through  the  entire  Western  country. 
The  growing  difficulties  of  obtaining  money  multiply  the  difficulties  of 
paying  debts.  If  there  is  no  relief  to  a  great  section  of  the  country  that 
has  become  involved  in  contracts  to  pay  interest,  burdens  which  it  is  im- 
possible to  bear,  then  general  bankruptcy  in  that  section  must  follow.  If 
legal  relief  be  possible  from  this  state  of  things  it  is  the  first  duty  of  the 
government  to  furnish  it.  It  is  believed  that  the  power  of  government 
can  be  so  exercised  as  in  a  measure,  at  least,  to  save  the  Western  country 
from  almost  universal  wreck.  This  relief  can  be  partly  obtained  through 
Federal  government,  partly  through  State  governments,  and  partly  through 
a  better  understanding  and  management  of  agricultural  business.  The 
Federal  government  has  exclusive  power  to  coin  money  and  to  regulate 
the  value  thereof.  This  power  implies  that  the  value  of  money  ought  to 
be  fixed  and  regulated  by  law,  else  the  power  would  not  have  been  given. 
This  power  is  continuous  and  may  be  exercised  from  time  to  time  as 
Congress  may  determine.  The  regulation  of  the  value  of  money  involves 
the  power  to  affect  the  ability  of  debtors  to  discharge  their  obligation. 
The  highest  consideration  that  can  govern  the  exercise  of  this  power  is 
the  welfare  of  a  great  body  of  the  people  affected  by  it.  No  legal  wrong 
is  done  by  so  regulating  the  value  of  money  as  to  prevent  the  growing 
oppression  of  debts.  The  welfare  and  prosperity  of  the  citizen  is  the 
sovereign  object  of  government.  The  chief  end  of  government  is  not  to 
preserve  austere  and  crushing  methods  of  collecting  debts.  The  prefer- 
ence of  the  law  is  for  the  citizen  instead  of  the  debt.  This  is  illustrated 
in  insolvent  and  bankruptcy  legislation,  from  time  to  time  enacted. 
Periods  of  depression  occur,  commercial  and  industrial  despair  at  times 
prevail.  During  these  periods  legal  relief  is  furnished  to  the  debtor  class 
by  a  legal  cancellation  of  the  debts,  which,  for  the  time  being,  operate 
to  suspend  business  activity.  This  is  deemed  wise,  in  a  general  business 
way,  to  the  end  that  the  citizen,  the  initial  social  force,  may  rally  again  and 
once  more  enter  upon  the  active  production  of  wealth.  That  it  is  lawful 


—  13  — 

to  so  regulate  the  value  of  money  as  to  make  the  payment  of  obligations 
no  more  difficult  than  when  the  debt  was  contracted,  has  been  decided  by 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in  defining  the  obligation  of  a 
contract.  That  court  says,  "The  obligation  is  to  pay  money  which  the 
law  shall  recognize  as  money  when  the  payment  is  made.  Every  contract 
for  the  payment  of  money  simply,  is  necessarily  subject  to  the  constitu- 
tional power  of  the  government  over  the  currency,  whatever  that  power 
may  be,  and  the  obligation  of  the  parties  is  therefore  assumed  with 
reference  to  that  power." 

Hence  it  is  the  right  and  legal  duty  of  Congress  to  so  control  the 
value  of  money,  by  its  legislation,  as  that  the  debtor  class  be  not  op- 
pressed. If  commercial  conditions  exist  which  increase  the  burdens  of 
indebtedness,  at  the  time  of  payment,  vastly  beyond  what  they  were  at 
the  time  of  the  creation  of  the  debt,  the  power  of  the  government  should 
be  so  exercised  as  to  mitigate  such  increased  burdens.  Money  is  a  mere 
representation  of  value.  The  products  of  the  country  are  the  real  value. 
Such  a  condition  of  currency,  as  requires  larger  quantities  thereof  to 
pay  debts,  when  due,  than  were  required  to  pay  the  same  debts  when  con- 
tracted, is  oppressive  and  justifies  an  adjustment  of  the  value  of  money 
to  such  changed  conditions. 

In  1865  the  National  debt  was  two  thousand,  six  hundred  and  eighty 
millions,  six  hundred  and  forty-seven  thousand,  eight  hundred  and  sixty- 
nine  dollars.  At  that  time,  wheat  was  worth  in  the  market,  one  dollar 
and  fifty-six  cents  per  bushel.  The  entire  National  indebtedness  could 
have  been  paid  off  and  discharged  with  one  thousand,  seven  hundred 
and  eighty  millions,  three  hundred  and  sixty-four  thousand,  two  hundred 
and  eighty-eight  bushels  of  wheat.  In  1889  the  debt  has  been  reduced  to 
one  thousand  millions  of  dollars,  yet,  at  the  then  price  of  wheat,  eighty 
cents  per  bushel,  one  thousand  two  hundred  and  fifty  million  bushels  of 
wheat  were  required  to  pay  the  debt.  The  increase  of  the  burdens  of 
private  and  municipal  indebtedness  between  the  two  periods  mentioned, 
was  the  same.  It  will  be  seen  that  two  bushels  of  wheat  in  1889,  repre- 
sented the  value  only  of  about  one  bushel  of  wheat  in  1865. 

The  debts  hanging  over  the  country  have  become  twice  as  difficult  of 
payment  since  the  war  closed,  as  they  were  in  1865.  In  1873,  Congress, 
for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  government,  demonetized  silver  and 
made  gold  the  single  standard  of  value. 

This  act  was  dictated  by  Eastern  influence.  The  East  possesses  power 
over  the  West  and  South  through  its  abundance  of  money.  Any 
assumption  that  the  East  is  superior  in  intelligence  to  the  West,  or  wiser 
in  statemanship,  is  baseless.  It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that  the 
West  is  dominated  by  the  East.  By  controlling  the  standard  and 
quantity  of  money,  it  controls  the  business  and  consequently  the  politics 
of  the  West.  The  development  of  silver  is  a  Western  enterprise.  If 
freely  coined  into  money,  the  despotism  of  gold  and  of  the  East  will  be 
broken.  There  is  no  lack  of  wisdom  in  providing  an  abundance  of 


—  14  — 

money,  nor  is  there  danger  in  the  double  standard  of  gold  and  silver. 
Alexander  Hamilton,  among  the  wisest  and  most  conservative  of  Ameri- 
can statesmen,  gives  it  as  his  opinion,  "  That  a  preference  ought  to  be 
given  to  neither  of  the  metals,  gold  or  silver,  for  the  money  unit."  He 
recommends  that  Congress  attach  the  unit,  indiscriminately  to  both 
metals.  The  office  of  money  is  to  quicken  production  and  arouse 
industry.  Facilities  for  industrial  development  and  progress  can  work 
no  injury.  Proper  Federal  legislation  will  bring  relief  to  the  depressed 
West,  but  such  legislation  can  only  be  procured  by  the  unity  in  support 
of  it  of  the  great  region  of  country  needing  it. 

There  is  nothing  communistic  or  revolutionary  in  the  free  coinage  of 
gold  and  silver.  They  are  constitutional  money.  Their  free  coinage  can 
be  no  just  ground  of  complaint  by  the  creditor  class.  Gold  and  silver 
currency  rests  upon  the  Constitution,  upon  Democratic  adoption  and 
upon  the  commendation  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  the  country,  in- 
cluding among  them,  Alexander  Hamilton.  Free  coinage  of  gold  and 
silver  would  bring  relief  to  the  distressed  agricultural  interests  of  the 
West,  and  ought  at  once  to  be  provided  for. 

THE   TAKIFF. 

The  tariff  doctrines  of  the  Democratic  party,  formulated  and  expressed 
by  her  ablest  men,  are  clear  and  conservative.  These  doctrines  contem- 
plate that  Federal  revenue  shall  be  supplied  by  customs  duties,  as 
distinguished  from  direct  taxation,  and  that  they  be  so  adjusted  as  to 
preserve  the  better  conditions  of  labor  here,  over  those  existing  in  other 
countries. 

For  twenty-five  years  a  high  rate  of  duties  has  prevailed.  These 
duties  were  established  by  the  Republican  party.  Rates  of  wages  became 
fixed,  and  the  price  of  property  effected  by  the  cost  of  products  estab- 
lished under  this  high  productive  system.  .Democrats  and  Republicans 
alike,  indeed  all  commerce  andtall  classes  of  labor,  were  involved  in  them. 

The  Democracy  propose  to  reduce  these  excessive  tariff  duties  to  the 
needs  of  the  government  economically  administered.  In  urging  a  reduc  - 
tion,  the  party  pledged  itself  to  keep  in  mind  the  fact  that  investments 
had  been  made  and  rates  of  wages  had  been  fixed  under  the  circumstances 
above  stated,  and  pledged  itself  also  to  reach  a  reduction  of  duties 
through  a  course  of  procedure  that  would  occasion  as  little  damage  and 
injury  to  capital  invested  as  possible.  It  further  declared  that  the 
reduction  should  be  so  made  as  to  cheapen  the  necessaries  of  life,  rather 
than  to  reduce  taxation  on  luxuries.  This  has  been  Democratic  doctrine 
from  Jackson's  day  to  this. 

The  platform  of  1888  of  the  Republican  party  differs  from  the  Demo- 
cratic platform  in  a  very  extravagant  degree.  The  Republican  platform 
contains  a  declaration  never  before  made  by  any  party;  that  Congress 
possesses  the  power  to  prohibit,  without  reference  to  raising  Federal 
revenue,  the  introduction  of  foreign  goods  into  this  country.  It  declares 


—  15  — 

that  the  Government  at  Washington  may  say  to  the  people  of  New  York, 
that  they  shall  not  purchase  anything  outside  of  the  American  Union. 

Congress  has  power  to  levy  impost  duties  for  the  purpose  of  federal 
revenue;  it  has  power  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations. 
Neither  of  these  powers,  however,  include  the  power  to  prohibit  foreign 
commerce.  The  States  reserved  to  themselves  all  that  they  did  not  grant 
to  the  Federal  Government.  The  State  of  New  York,  in  entering  the 
Union,  did  not  grant  to  Congress  any  power  over  the  commerce  of  New 
York  with  foreign  nations,  except  the  power  to  tax  that  commerce  for 
the  purposes  of  revenue  and  to  regulate  the  same.  The  legal  difference 
between  the  power  to  regulate  and  the  power  to  destroy  has  so  often 
been  declared,  that  it  cannot  now  be  claimed  that  such  powers  are 
identical.  Hence,  the  position  of  the  Democratic  party  on  the  tariff  is 
constitutional,  and  the  position  of  the  Republican  party  is  revolutionary. 
If  this  be  not  so,  Texas,  though  securing  a  deep-water  port  for  the  pur- 
pose of  commercial  union  with  the  outside  world,  can,  after  the  port  is 
established,  be  prohibited  from  using  it  for  the  purpose  of  foreign 
commerce,  if  Congress  chooses  to  so  declare.  This  doctrine  takes  abso- 
lute possession  of  the  foreign  trade  and  commerce  of  the  respective 
States  by  Congress,  and  instead  of  taxing  and  regulating  it,  assumes 
power  to  destroy  it.  There  is  no  such  power  in  the  Government. 

Before  the  war,  commerce  with  foreign  nations  was  regulated  to  a 
large  extent  by  reciprocity  treaties.  If  a  nation  would  agree  to  admit  the 
products  of  this  country,  under  a  low  tariff,  or  free,  this  country  was 
willing  to  reciprocate. 

The  platform  of  the  Democratic  party  pledged  the  party  to  restore  this 
and  to  secure  more  intimate  political  relations  with  the  South  American 
countries. 

The  Democratic  party  cannot  adopt  the  doctrine  of  extermination  of 
protected  industries.  Neither  can  it  persue  a  revolutionary  policy  in 
regard  to  federal  taxation.  Its  line  of  battle  in  1890  and  in  1892  will  be  as 
it  has  heretofore  been  in  New  York,  New  Jersey.  Connecticut,  the  two 
Virginias,  Indiana  and  Missouri.  It  must  appeal  to  the  conservative 
thought  of  those  States  for  success.  It  cannot  afford  to  throw  itself  at 
the  feet  of  any  man.  Democracy  is  greater  than  individual.  Parties 
forming  tariff  reform  clubs  and  other  unions,  reflecting  but  a  single  idea, 
ought  to  disband  them  and  in  their  places  organize  Democratic  clubs. 
One  idea,  and  that  a  subordinate  one,  an  impracticable  one,  a  cold,  pulseless 
one,  an  idea  confronted  with  a  decisive  majority  against  it  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  which  increased  by  the  admission  of  new  States,  will  con- 
tinue for  at  least  ten  years  and  possibly  longer,  is  scant  political  capital  to 
wage  a  great  battle  upon.  Persons  suffering  from  mental  lassitude  to  the 
degree  that  one  idea  makes  them  noisy,  ought  to  seek  seclusion  and  rest. 
The  further  proposition  that  one  candidate  with  defeat  is  better  than  an- 
other candidate  with  success,  indicates  low  intellectual  pressure.  It  is  said, 
"The  shallows  murmur  when  the  deep  is  dumb."  The  tariff  doctrines  of 


—  16  — 

the  party  are  well  expressed  in  its  platforms  and  are  suited  to  a  healthy 
growth  and  developement  of  American  industry.  These  doctrines  can 
only  be  of  value  to  the  country  by  a  success  of  the  party.  A  flippant 
indifference  to  success  is  extreme  folly.  The  Democratic  party  cannot 
succeed  as  a  negative  party,  nor  as  a  critic  merely  of  some  other  party. 
It  must  reaffirm  its  code  of  principles  and  have  an  enlightened,  aggressive 
policy  of  its  own  to  carry  them  into  execution. 

It  must  have  Democrats  in  office  to  support  a  Democratic  administra- 
tion ;  it  must  purify  the  civil  service  by  placing  in  power  Democrats  in 
sympathy  with  Democratic  principles.  The  party  possesses  a  membership- 
sufficiently  accomplished  and  patriotic  to  fill  all  offices  under  a  Democratic 
administration,  and  to  make  the  civil  service  of  the  highest  standard  of 
purity  and  efficiency. 

DEPRESSION  IN  PRICES  OF  AGRICULTURAL  PRODUCTS 

Is  charged  indiscriminately  to  excessive  impost  duties.  Although  this  may 
not  be  capable  of  exact  proof,  yet  such  duties  being  higher  than  are  neces- 
sary to  furnish  revenue  to  the  Government  under  an  adjustment  of  them  that 
will  favorably  effect  domestic  industries,  they  must  be  reduced.  It  does 
not,  however,  promote  a  correct  understanding  of  the  relations  between 
the  price  of  agricultural  products  and  impost  duties,  to  charge  that  high 
duties  on  imports  cause  low  prices  in  agricultural  products,  if  such  is  not 
the  fact.  It  can  be  easily  seen  that  impost  duties  increase  the  price  of 
manufactured  articles  favored  by  such  duties.  It  does  not  follow,  how- 
ever, that  agricultural  products  are  reduced  in  price  because  of  the 
existence  of  such  duties. 

In  order  to  settle  upon  a  remedy  for  the  depressed  state  of  agriculture, 
it  is  necessary  to  discover  the  true  cause  of  such  depression.  From  1849 
to  1884,  a  period  of  thirty-five  years,  the  increase  of  population  was  141 
per  cent,  while  the  increase  in  the  production  of  wheat  was  410  per  cent. 
As  is  shown  by  United  States  Agricultural  report  of  1887,  the  increase  in 
the  supply  of  wheat  in  recent  years  in  many  parts  of  the  world  has  been 
very  great.  In  the  United  States  for  example,  the  increase  was  from 
250,000,000  bushels  in  1872  to  512,000,000  bushels  in  1884.  In  1881  the 
Territory  of  Dakota,  comprising  over  150,000  square  miles,  had  not  pro- 
duced a  single  bushel  of  wheat  for  sale.  In  1886  its  crop  was  estimated 
by  the  Agricultural  Department  at  30,000,000  bushels,  or  nearly  as  great  as 
the  annual  export  of  wheat  from  India  since  1880.  In  1887  the  crop  wa& 
62,000,000  bushels,  or  1/7  of  the  total  product  of  wheat  of  the  United 
States.  Previous  to  1873  there  was  no  trade  movement  in  wheat  between 
Europe  and  India.  After  the  opening  of  the  Suez  Canal  and  the  removal 
of  an  impost  duty,  19,000,000  bushels  were  shipped  to  England  in  1880, 
and  42,000,000  bushels  in  1887.  In  1878  the  Argentine  States  of  South 
America  had  no  wheat  supply.  In  1887  that  country  exported  8,000,000- 
bushels.  Russia  for  the  years  1887-8  exported  112,000,000  bushels.  In 
Austria,  Hungary,  the  average  annual  wheat  product  for  seven  years,. 


—  17  — 

from  1873  to  1880,  was  93,000,000  bushels;  but  for  the  seven  years  from 
1880  to  1886,  it  was  133,000,000  bushels. 

Mr.  David  A.  Wells,  a  free-trader,  declares  on  page  175  of  his  recent 
Economic  Changes  that  the  experience  of  the  years  1888  and  1889  would 
seem  to  constitute  evidence  almost  in  the  nature  of  a  demonstration  of  the 
«ntire  accuracy  of  the  opinion  which  ascribes  the  recent  low  prices  of 
wheat  mainly  to  a  supply  largely  in  excess  of  the  world's  requirements. 
Europe  is  practically  the  only  market  that  America  can  have  for  her  sur- 
plus wheat.  Mr.  Wells  says  the  wheat  crop  of  Europe  is  not  nearly  suf- 
ficient to  meet  the  wants  of  its  people,  that  if  the  surplus  of  Eastern 
Europe  should  be  distributed  annually  in  the  continental  States,  it  would 
nearly  supply  all  their  deflciences,  leaving  practically  only  Great  Britian 
to  receive  the  imports  of  other  continents,  and  consume  only  the  surplus 
of  the  wheat  markets  of  the  world.  The  present  average  wheat  crop  of 
Europe  is  estimated  at  1,200,000,000  bushels;  her  deficiency  is  only  140,- 
000,000  bushels.  Of  this  deficiency  the  United  States  supplies  100,000,000 
bushels. 

In  1880,  the  United  States,  Eussia,  India,  Australia  and  the  Argentine 
Republic  exported  a  surplus  of  209,000,000  bushels.  Mr.  Wells  says 
further,  that  it  is  obvious,  therefore,  that  with  this  limitation  of  market 
any  enlargement  of  the  surplus  wheat  product  of  the  United  States,  must 
inevitably  reduce  its  price  at  home  and  abroad.  It  is  seen,  therefore  that 
Dakota  alone  produces  nearly  as  much  wheat  as  can  be  taken  up  from 
this  country  by  the  foreign  markets  to  which  we  have  access. 

Added  to  the  enormous  supply  of  wheat,  impost  duties  were  increased 
on  it  in  1887  by  France  for  the  purpose  of  retaining  to  itself  its  own 
wheat  market.  In  France  the  position  has  been  taken  that  the  only 
possible  means  of  salvation  for  agricultural  Central  Europe  will  be 
for  France,  Germany,  Austria  and  Italy  to  sink  all  politial  antipathies  and 
from  an  Inter  national  Custom  Union  to  exclude  all  food  products  from 
Russia,  Australia  and  America.  For  other  serial  products  of  the  United 
States,  Europe's  demands  are  comparatively  inconsiderable. 

The  imports  of  European  countries  requiring  maize,  for  example,  do 
not  make  a  sum  one-half  as  large  as  the  products  of  single  States.  The 
deficiency  in  France  could  be  supplied  by  single  counties,  and  Germany 
requires  still  less. 

It  will  be  seen  by  these  figures  that  our  exports  of  grain  go  to  England 
principally.  It  may  be  said  that  if  this  country  would  import  more 
largely  from  England,  it  would  sell  more  agricultural  products  to  Eng- 
land. This  does  not  follow ;  England  procures  her  wheat  from  her  own 
colonies  and  dependencies,  to  the  extent  that  they  can  furnish  it  to  her. 
The  deficiency  is  all  that  we  can  make  up.  If  one-half  the  wheat  pro- 
duced in  the  country  is  sufficient  for  home  consumption  and  to  supply 
whatevei  demand  there  is  abroad  for  American  wheat,  it  needs  no  argu- 
ment to  show  that  the  continued  production  of  a  large  surplus  will 
continue  to  account  for  low  prices.  We  are  enabled  to  furnish  to  Eng- 


—  18  — 

i 

land  wheat  cheaper  than  it  can  be  produced  there.  The  wheat  acreage  in 
Great  Britain  fell  off  from  about  4,000,000  acres  in  1869  to  2,300,000 
acres  in  1887,  or  more  than  40  per  cent.  Italy  has  decreased  her  wheat 
crop,  and  so  did  France  until  import  duties  were  placed  upon  foreign 
wheat  by  her.  It  is  well  known  that  France  and  Germany  have  lately 
excluded  American  meats  from  their  markets,  which  explains  in  some 
degree  the  decline  in  those  products. 

RELIEF  OF  FARMERS. 

Farming  must  be  relieved  by  exemptions  of  homesteads  from  taxation, 
and  by  preventing  the  stringency  of  money,  and  by  a  thorough  knowledge 
of  farming  and  of  the  markets  for  produce.  The  commerce  of  the  world 
is  becoming  more  and  more  unified.  Higher  grades  of  products  on  the 
farm,  pay  better  than  low  grades.  One  blooded  beef  will  sell  for  an 
amount  equal  to  three  of  low  grade.  Three-fourths  of  the  present  wheat 
crop  of  the  world  supplies  the  demand,  and  if  properly  handled  would 
bring  the  same  amount  of  money  to  the  farmer  that  the  whole  crop  now 
brings  and  the  waste  would  be  avoided.  A  repeal  of  the  eternal 
revenue  system  and  a  substitution  of  the  State  for  the  Fed- 
eral Government  as  the  beneficiary  of  the  tax  on  consumption  of  liquors, 
would  at  the  same  rates  as  now  prevail,  divert  the  several  millions  of 
dollars  taken  out  of  the  State  and  out  of  the  circulating  medium  every 
year  from  the  Federal  to  the  State  Treasury,  and  relieve  the  farms  of  the 
State  from  all  taxation. 

TRUSTS. 

Farmers  and  otfiers  are  entitled  also  to  all  available  legal  relief  against 
trusts.  Among  the  reasons  why  wheat,  for  instance,  is  cheap  on  the 
farm  and  dear  when  converted  into  flour,  is  that  the  owners  of  wheat  are 
numerous  and  have  no  union  or  agreement  among  themselves  fixing  the 
price  they  will  exact  for  it ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  each  is  working  in 
rivalry  with  the  other  to  push  his  crop  on  the  market.  The  purchasers 
of  wheat  unify  their  interests  in  a  trust,  and  fix  a  price  by  the  trust  at 
which  they  will  buy.  Consumers  of  flour  have  no  union  of  interest  or 
trust  by  which  they  can  affect  the  price  they  shall  pay.  They  act  in  their 
individual  capacities  as  purchasers.  The  trust,  therefore,  interposes  it- 
self between  the  producer  of  wheat  and  the  consumer  of  flour  and 
dictates  the  price  of  both.  The  trust  is  the  vampire  that  drinks  deeply  of 
the  blood  of  both  producer  and  consumer.  Trusts  exist  in  respect  of 
substances  affected  by  tariff  duties,  and  of  substances  not  so  affected. 
They  exist  all  over  the  world  wherever  capital  is  abundant.  They  are 
the  centralization  of  capital.  They  can  be  legally  dissolved  when  com- 
posed of  corporations,  for  a  corporation  takes  nothing  beyond  what  is 
granted  to  it.  It  is  granted  an  individual  existance  and  is  limited  to 
individual  activity.  It  has  no  power  to  join  in  a  trust  with  other  corpora- 
tions. The  remedy  against  trusts  when  composed  of  individuals  is  more 
difficult.  How]  far  individuals  engaged  in  a  common  business  can  con- 


—  19  — 

sistent  with  the  principles  of  personal  liberty  be  restrained  by  the  courts 
from  agreeing  among  themselves  upon  a  price  at  which  they  will  buy  or 
sell,  is  yet  unsettled.  This  is  a  deep  and  perplexing  problem.  Whether 
such  combinations  cannot  best  be  opposed  by  a  union  of  producers 
holding  first  possession  of  products,  is  worthy  of  consideration. 

TEANSPORTATION  AND  MISSISSIPPI  RIVER. 

One  of  the  most  irrepressible  subjects  in  politics  is  that  of  transporta- 
tion. It  is  claimed  that  railroads  have  been  constructed  in  the  country 
under  a  system  of  indebtedness  representing,  in  many  instances,  twice  or 
three  times  the  capital  actually  employed  in  constructing  the  roads.  If 
this  capital  is  made  remunerative  it  must  be  because  railroads  are  allowed 
to  charge  such  rates  as  will  pay  operating  expenses  and  interest  on  this 
vast  indebtedness.  It  is  said  in  as  much  as  every  railroad  draws  its 
prosperity  from  the  community  which  patronizes  it,  the  indebtedness  of  a 
railroad  is  really  an  indebtedness  of  the  community  supporting  the  rail- 
road. To  extract  from  a  community  profit  on  a  capital  never  invested,  is 
to  consume  values  produced  by  that  community  without  compensation. 

There  are  two  ways  to  handle  this  subject;  one  is  by  legislation  designed 
to  reduce  the  rates  of  transportation  so  as  to  leave  only  sufficient  revenue 
to  constitute  a  just  interest  on  the  money  actually  invested  in  the  enter- 
prise. The  paper  issued  by  railroad  companies  heretofore  was  put  on  the 
market  and  taken  up  by  innocent  purchasers  under  circumstances  where 
it  is  almost  impossible  now  to  discriminate  between  those  who  hold  that 
amount  of  securities  which  are  just,  and  that  amount  which  might  be  de- 
clared excessive.  Hence,  there  is  no  direct  way  of  distinguishing  between 
the  holders  of  those  securities  which  should  rightfully  draw  interest,  and 
those  which  have  been  issued  to  represent  a  capital  never  put  into  the 
railroad.  To  remedy  this  state  of  things  by  legislation  will,  therefore,  be 
exceedingly  difficult  and  involve  long  litigation. 

The  second  plan  of  solution  is  to  cheapen  transportation  by  improving 
the  water-ways  of  this  country,  so  that  railroads  will  be  driven  to  reduce 
their  charges  to  a  rate  that  will  remunerate  them  for  the  money  actually 
invested.  This  would  involve  no  hostile  legislation;  no  protracted  con- 
test in  the  courts  with  the  railroads ;  no  danger  of  scandal  in  the  Legisla- 
ture through  necessary  legislation,  but  would  settle  the  transportation 
question  of  the  West  on  purely  business  principles. 

The  difference  in  cost  of  transportation  of  freight  by  water  and  by  rail 
is  enough  to  accomplish  this  end.  One-half  the  cost  of  the  Union  Pacific 
Railroad  to  the  Govemment  would  furnish  deep  water  in  the  Mississippi 
River  from  St.  Louis  to  the  Gulf. 

Forty-five  millions  of  dollars  will  secure  deep  water  from  St.  Louis  to 
the  Gulf,  at  all  seasons  of  the  year.  The  saving  on  a  bushel  of  wheat  to 
New  York,  by  water,  over  the  cost  of  transportation  by  rail,  is  at  least 
7  cents  per  bushel.  Estimating  that  one-half  of  the  crop  is  annually 
transported  from  the  Mississippi  Valley,  a  saving  of  7  cents  per  bushel  on 


—  20  — 

that  half  amounts  on  the  crop  raised  in  1885-'86  to  over  eighty-eight 
millions  of  dollars.  The  report  of  the  internal  commerce  of  the  United 
States  declares  that  that  portion  of  the  internal  trade  of  the  country 
belonging  to  the  twenty-one  States  and  Territories  tapped  by  the  navi- 
gable portions  of  the  Mississippi  and  tributaries  is  upward  of  sixteen 
thousand  millions  of  dollars  in  value,  or  greater  than  the  foreign  com- 
merce of  all  nations  combined.  In  1880  not  more  than  one-fourth  part  of 
the  area  of  this  productive  region  had  been  improved. 

These  facts  disclose  the  economic  effect  of  improving  the  Mississippi 
Elver  and  its  tributaries. 

The  opening  of  a  canal  across  the  isthmus  will  extend  water  transpor- 
tation from  all  parts  of  the  Mississippi  River  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  One 
of  the  great  advantages  which  England  has  had  over  other  nations,  is 
water  communication  with  the  world.  The  Mississippi  Valley  produces 
grain  to  the  amount  of  fifty  bushels  for  every  man,  woman  and  child  in 
the  United  States.  This  great  basin  is  the  cheapest  granary  of  the  world. 
The  freight  earnings  of  the  railroads  of  the  United  States  during  a  period 
of  five  years,  from  '81  to  '85,  amount  to  $2,630,652,321,  an  amount  equal 
to  the  whole  national  debt  at  the  close  of  the  war.  The  railways  cannot 
handle  the  products  of  this  valley  for  the  future.  An  improvement  of  the 
-water-ways  of  the  interior  is  an  absolute  essential  to  the  relief  from 
transportation  oppression. 

Missouri  is  the  assembling  and  distributing  center  of  the  great  grain 
producing  region  of  this  valley.  The  economic  benefit  to  this  State  of 
unobstructed  river  intercourse  with  the  South,  East  and  West,  would 
overcome  all  the  burdens  of  taxation  that  now  oppress  her.  This  State, 
as  the  years  of  a  people  are  counted,  is  in  its  swaddling  clothes.  Nature 
has  confided  to  it  sources  of  wealth,  the  development  and  husbandry  of 
which  will  make  destitution  and  want  among  her  people  impossible.  The 
East  courts  this  wealth,  and,  if  unopposed,  will  through  interest,  trans- 
portation charges,  federal  taxes  and  premiums  on  Eastern  capital,  dimin- 
ish the  profits  of  business  In  this  valley  to  a  minimum.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  cities  of  this  State  seated  on  its  great  navigable  water-ways, 
unite  their  influence  to  fabrication  here,  the  mineral  substances  and  raw 
material  of  the  State  and  the  West,  into  articles  of  merchandise  for  dis- 
tribution, this  State  will  become  the  money  center,  as  it  will  be  the  pro- 
ducing and  political  center  of  the  West.  Cheap  water  transportation  is 
the  key  to  the  destiny  of  this  State  and  this  valley.  The  mountains  west 
of  the  valley  contain  the  precious  metals  adequate  to  this  undertaking. 
THIS  STATE  IS  ABOUT  TO  ELECT  A  SENATOR. 

This  office  is  a  part  of  the  trust  machinery  of  the  Government.  In  it  no 
one  has  any  private  interest.  It  is  to  be  filled  by  the  people  through  the 
Legislature,  at  the  proper  time  and  in  the  legal  way.  Its  acquisition 
cannot  be  rightfully  made  the  subject  of  intrigue.  The  theory  that  it  is 
the  seat  of  some  one,  is  vicious  and  offensive  to  decent  politics.  It  is 
open  to  the  ambition  of  every  citizen  having  the  qualifications  to  fill  it. 


—  21  — 

It  cannot  have  escaped  the  observation  of  reading  and  thinking  people 
that  a  new  era  is  approaching.  Within  the  last  seven  years  nearly  all  of 
the  great  civilized  countries  of  the  world  have  made  profound 
economic  changes  in  their  business  and  political  relations  with  each 
other.  European  nations,  by  a  sleepless  diplomacy,  are  bringing 
under  their  commercial  domination,  all  newly  discovered  coun- 
tries whose  institutions  they  can  control.  They  are  extending 
their  trade  relations  with  the  far  East.  Japan  has  by  treaty 
with  England,  within  six  months,  thrown  open  to  England's  trade 
the  vast  possessions  of  that  country.  France  and  Germany  are  seeking 
colonial  attachments  to  absorb  their  products  and  from  which  to  draw 
their  serial  supplies.  In  the  meantime  they  are  gradually  excluding  from 
their  markets,  the  grain  and  meat  products  of  this  country.  Our  trade 
conquests  lie  in  a  different  direction.  South  of  us  is  a  vast  region  in 
political  sympathy  with  this  people  and  their  institutions.  They  have 
practically  adopted  our  form  of  government  and  our  jurisprudence. 
There  are  no  irritating  questions  arising  between  this  country  and  that 
region  to  obstruct  a  thoroughly  intimate  industrial  alliance  with  them. 
A  new  condition  opens  before  this  country. 

New  men  must  take  hold  of  new  conditions.  The  necessity  for  explain- 
ing the  past  impairs  the  usefulness  of  a  statesman  for  the  future.  The 
Democracy  must  unload  the  gloom  of  the  past  and  turn  its  face  forward. 
Against  the  gentleman  whose  term  in  the  Senate  is  about  to  expire,  I 
have  nothing  to  say.  I  have  at  no  time  spoken  disrespectfully  of  him,  nor 
shall  I  do  so  in  the  future.  As  I  weigh  political  obligations  and  duties,  it 
can  be  no  offense  to  him  that  I  aspire  to  an  office  which  the  State  alone 
has  jurisdiction  to  fill.  I  am  eligible  under  the  Constitution  to  the  office 
of  Senator.  I  have  lived  in  this  State  since  boyhood,  and  am  a  Democrat. 
I  was  married  here ;  my  children  were  born  here,  and  some  have  died  here ; 
all  I  own  is  here.  My  citizenship  in  Missouri,  since  1864,  has  been  con- 
tinuous. These  facts  make  this  my  home.  I  do  not  set  them  up,  how- 
ever, as  giving  me  any  claim  upon  the  State.  I  make  none. 

I  have  had  all  these  years  the  protection  of  the  just  laws  of  the  State, 
and  have  enjoyed  the  splendid  hospitality  of  its  people.  This  leaves  me 
in  debt  to  the  State.  I  have  the  right,  however,  in  common  with  others, 
to  take  part  in  public  affairs.  No  combination  of  men  have  jurisdiction  to 
tread  me  under  foot  and  vilify  my  name  because  I  have  been  mentioned 
for  an  office. 

I  want  to  pay  back  to  the  State  part  of  my  obligation  to  it,  by  aiding  in 
the  restoration  of  free  political  speech  in  the  State.  I  want  to  cancel  it 
in  part  by  exterminating  the  vandalism  of  ring  rules.  I  wish  to  con- 
tribute to  the  destruction  of  the  loathsome  assumption  that  the  destiny  of 
this  State  is  to  remain  clouded  by  the  imbecile  insolence  of  a  few  men. 
On  these  propositions  I  announce  myself  a  candidate  for  the  United 
States  Senate.  I  will  submit  my  case  to  the  sovereign  opinion  of  the 
Democracy  of  this  State.  I  acknowledge  no  other  superior. 


' 


JEFFERSON  CHANDLER, 


-DELIVERED    AT — 


TRENTON,    MO., 


JULY    4,    1890. 


ST.  LOUIS: 

BUXTON   &   SKINNER   STATIONERY   COMPANY, 
189O. 


ADDRESS  OF  JEFFERSON  CHANDLER. 

DELIVERED   AT    TRENTON,   MO. 


MR.  PRESIDENT,  LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  : 

During  the  growth  of  civilization,  certain  days  have  become  hallowed. 
These  days  mark  great  crises  in  history.  They  are  consecrated  by  the 
expression  of  some  heroic  determination,  or  by  the  accomplishment  of 
some  splendid  achievement.  They  rank  in  sanctitv  and  grandeur,  in 
proportion  as  the  purposes  declared  or  deeds  done  upon  them  advance 
the  happiness  and  welfare  of  our  race.  Observing  people  know  that 
periods  occur  when  great  bodies  of  men  are  moved  to  higher  life  by  in- 
visible tides  of  heroic  ambition.  Such  manifestations  of  devotion  to  jus- 
tice and  liberty  are  sometimes  called  inspiration,  and  sometimes  an  over- 
ruling providence.  They  are  impulses  from  the  infinitude  of  wisdom  and 
moral  energy.  They  are  psychological  waves  that  break  over  the  path- 
way of  history.  They  are  contributions  from  the  unknown  to  the  known. 
They  authenticate  the  relation  between  God  and  man  and  prove  that  the 
builder  of  the  universe  is  its  governor.  Thev  show  that  the  inhabitants 
of  the  world  move  on  an  upward  career  along  the  lige  of  destiny, 
lighted  from  end  to  end  by  a  cloudless  benevolence.  (The  Fourth  of 
July,  1776,  is  to  be  studied  in  the  light  of  these  propositions.  That 
day  stands  for  the  introduction  into  the  world  of  a  new  political  gospel. 
It  marks  the  beginning  of  a  constitutional  dispensation  of  liberty. 
There  have  been  republics  before,  but  not  democratic  republics,  whose 
dogmas  rested  on  solid  constitutional  foundations,  dividing  governments 
into  separate  independent  departments  and  fixing  limitations  in  favof  of 
personal  liberty,  beyond  which  government  could  not  pass. 

Autocratic  or  oligarchic  republics  were  instituted  in  the  mediaeval  times. 
Sovereign  power  was  vested  in  franchised  citizens,  and  every  function, 
legislative,  executive  or  judicial,  not  vested  in  that  body,  were  exercised 
by  parties  deriving  their  authority  from  it.  Their  power  was  without 
system  of  delegation  or  representation.  Such  were  the  republics  of 
Greece,  Rome,  Carthage,  Venice,  Genoa. 

The  Roman  Republic  continued  478  years — from  510  B.  C.  to  28  B.  C. 
At  first  it  was  aristocratic ;  political  powej  was  in  the  hands  of  the  nobil- 
ity, from  whom  the  consuls  with  the  power  of  kings  were  chosen. 


—  4  — 

Struggles  continued. between  the  nobility  and  the  people  over  the  division 
of  the  lands  and  the  cruel  punishment  inflicted  on  debtors,  which  resulted 
in  increased  privileges  to  the  plebians  and  a  more  equal  distribution  of 
privileges.  Tine  result  of  this  was  that  Rome  became  pre-eminently 
exalted  above  surrounding  nations. 

The  subsequent  laws  declared  the  State  to  be  original  proprietor  of  all 
lands,  and  that  all  acquired  territory  should  be  divided  among  the  peo- 
ple at  large.  The  higher  classes  by  connivance,  occupation  or  purchase, 
obtained  nearly  all  the  lands,  as  well  as  the  greatest  part  of  all  spoils  of 
war.  Large  estates  rapidly  increased,  to  the  disparagement  of  small  land- 
holders, and  Rome  became  crowded  with  an  idle,  indigent  and  turbulent 
populace,  and  finally  fell. 

The  Republic  of  Carthage  existed  from  900  B.  C.  to  146  B.  C.  It  was 
essentially  aristocratic.  The  official  heads  were  two  in  number  and  held 
office  for  a  year.  Under  them  was  a  Senate,  divided  into  two  houses, 
numbering  respectively  300  and  30  members,  the  larger  body  was  elected 
by  the  people,  and  they  in  turn  elected  the  30  members.  Bribery  was 
largely  practiced  in  these  elections,  and  Aristotle  goes  so  far  as  to  say 
that  the  chief  offices  were  objects  of  sale  and  purchase.  The  people  had 
a  voice  in  the  conduct  of  affairs,  but  they  were  not  consulted  if  the  two 
chief  magistrates  and  the  Senate  were  agreed  on  a  course  of  action. 

In  her  zenith,  Carthage  was  the  greatest  marintiue  power  in  the  world, 
as  well  as  the  greatest  empire.  For  500  years  her  fame  filled  the  world, 
but  through  the  corruption  of  men  in  high  places  and  the  treachery  of  a 
mercenary  army  she  was  conquered  by  the  Romans,  146  B.  C. 

The  Republic  of  Greece  was  composed  of  several  independent  repub- 
lics, each  having  a  constitution  of  their  own,  but  no  central  government. 
They  were  bound  together  by  language,  blood,  common  religious  rites, 
social  institutions  and  laws,  which  distinguished  them  from  the  barba- 
rians around  .them.  Sparta  had  a  strictly  aristocratic  government,  lim- 
ited to  the  nobility,  who  possessed  the  land,  while  Athens  might  have 
been  called  a  Democratic  Republic  but  for  the  circumstance  that  a  major- 
ity of  her  population  were  slaves,  and  as  such  excluded  from  all  political 
rights.  They  were  frequently  involved  in  wars  with  each  other  and  Avere 
finally  subjugated  by  the  Romans. 

The  Italian  republics,  which  became  the  most  flourishing  and  powerful 
commercial  communities  of  the  Middle  Ages,  notably  Venice  and  Genoa, 
were  strictly  aristocratic.  A  number  of  political  families,  who  chose 
from  among  themselves  the  head  of  the  Government,  called  the  Doge, 
enjoyed  the  monopoly  of  political  power. 

Switzerland,  on  becoming  independent  of  Germany  in  1648,  adopted  a 
republican  form  of  government,  of  a  Democratic  character.  In  1815 
the  great  powers  guaranteed  her  existence  as  a  Federal  Republic,  con- 
sisting of  twenty-two  cantons.  Since  1830,  the  federal  as  well  as 
the  Cantonal  constitutions  haye  undergone  very  important  changes, 


—  5  — 

entirely  eliminating  their  aristocratic  features  and  making  them  conform 
more  nearly  to  the  United^  States  Government. 

In  France,  a  republican  form  of  government  was  adopted  in  1792, 
which  passed  through  violent  convulsions  and  various  transformations, 
until  1804,  when  it  was  supplanted  by  the  empire  of  Napoleon  I.  The 
second  attempt  of  republican  government  was  made  in  1848,  but  in  1852 
it  made  room  for  the  second  empire  under  Napoleon  III.  In  1870,  when 
Napoleon  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  German  forces,  the  republic 
was  proclaimed  for  the  third  time.  At  present  there  are  only  two  repub- 
lics of  importance  in  Europe — Switzerland  and  France. 

Great  Britain  was  nominally  a  Republic  for  eleven  years  from  1649  to 
1660  when  tile  Stuart  dynasty  was  restored. 

Mexico  has  been  a  republic  since  1824,  except  during  the  rule  of 
Maximillian  in  1863  to  1867. 

South  America  has  ten  distinct  republics,  viz. :  Peru,  Chili,  Ecuador* 
Paraguay,  Bolivia,  Columbia,  Venezuela,  Uruguay,  Argentine  Confedera- 
tion and  Brazil.  They  are  modeled  more  or  less  after  the  United  States 
Government. 

These  older  European  governments  were  republics  merely  in  name. 
They  were  mere  temporary  and  angry  protests  against  the  tyranny  of 
kings.  Their  people  had  little  conception  of  the  philosophy  of  liberty 
expressed  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  It  was  reserved  to  this 
country,  through  the  cloudless  intelligence  of  Jefferson,  to  lay  bare  to  the 
world  the  only  basis  of  truth  and  liberty  upon  which  endurable  civil 
government  could  be  built.  The  language  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence reveals  that  basis  and  defines  the  nature  of  government  and  its 
relation  to  mankind. 

We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident:  That  all  men  are  created 
equal ;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable 
rights;  that  among  these  are  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness; 
that  to  secure  these  rights  governments  are  instituted  among  men,  de- 
riving their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed.  That  when- 
ever any  form  of  government  becomes  destructive  of  these  ends,  it  is 
the  right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  to  abolish  it,  and  to  institute  a  new 
government,  laying  its  foundation  on  such  principles  and  organizing  its 
powers  in  such  form  as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely  to  effect  their 
safety  and  happiness. 

This  philosophy  establishes  government  upon  the  consent  of  the 
governed.  The  theory  of  ruler  and  subject  is  abolished.  The  seat  of 
sovereign  power  is  located  in  the  intelligence  and  patriotism  of  the 
citizen.  Man  is  assumed  to  inhabit  the  earth  under  endowments  from 
his  Creator,  of  life,  liberty  and  the  right  to  pursue  happiness.  These 
endowments  are  not  derived  from  the  State,  and  cannot  therefore  be 
repealed  by  the  State.  On  the  contrary,  governments  are  instituted  to 
secure  these  endowments.  Whenever  they  cease  to  do  this,  respect  for 
them  ceases.  The  primacy  of  the  citizen  being  set  up  as  the  central 


—  6  — 

dogma  of  the  system,  it  follows  naturally  that  the  firmer  government 
machinery  is  held  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  the  higher  is  the  guarantee 
that  personal  liberty  will  be  preserved.  This  proposition  is  the  basis  of 
local  self-government,  or  the  maintenance  inviolate  of  the  domestic 
sovereignty  of  the  State.  All  things  involved  in  the  preservation  of  life, 
liberty  and  personal  happiness,  lie  within  local  jurisdiction.  The 
Constitution  declares  that  "  the  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United 
States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved 
to  the  States  respectively  or  to  the  people." 

This .  provision  is  the  key  to  the  whole  system.  It,  in  legal  effect, 
declares  that  the  sum  of  the  powers  of  Federal  and  State  Governments 
make  but  one  government.  The  sovereignty  of  this  one  government  is 
divided  into  two  hemispheres,  federal  sovereignty,  limited  to  the  powers 
delegated  to  the  Federal  Congress,  executive  and  judiciary.  While  the 
States  are  sovereign  in  all  things  not  delegated  and  not  prohibited  to 
them,  neither  hemisphere  of  power  can  impair  the  other,  nor  under  a 
wise  administration  of  both  is  a  conflict  between  them  possible.  Neither 
has  legal  power  to  frown  upon,  or  scowl  at,  or  distrust  the  other.  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  protects  both.  It  establishes  a 
protective  sovereignty  and  contains  in  its  very  organism  the  constitutional 
duty  to  uphold  and  to  refrain  from  diminishing,  in  the  slightest  degree, 
the  authority  of  the  States. 

The  same  Constitution  that  confers  legislative  power  upon  Congress 
reserves  legislative  power  to  all  the  States,  and  that  part  of  legislative 
power  which  is  reserved  to  the  States  is  to  be  exercised  by  the  States, 
and  is  just  as  sacred  and  as  much  upheld  and  protected  by  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  and  is  just  as  legal  and  sovereign  in 
contemplation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  as  is  that 
legislation  which  Congress  enacts. 

The  reserved  power  of  the  State  is  an  abstract  declaration  of  power;  it 
is  manifested  in  the  creation  of  some  institution  by  the  State,  or  the 
passage  of  some  law  by  the  State.  When  there  appears  in  the  government 
of  the  State  a  legal  institution  or  law  springing  from  that  reserve  power, 
that  institution  and  that  law  comes  into  life  under,  and  is  commended  to, 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

The  States  are  powerless  to  assert  themselves  against  the  United 
States.  So  it  is  made  the  duty  of  the  United  States  to  preserve  to  the 
States  their  reserved  powers.  It  means  that  that  power  which  is  reserved 
to  the  State^  can  only  be  exercised  by  the  States. 

The  reservation  of  local  government  in  the  hands  of  the  people  invinci- 
bly implies  that  power  is  safer  reserved,  than  granted.  It  implies  that  the 
people  rely  chiefly  upon  themselves  and  not  upon  an  official  class.  It  as- 
serts that  they  are  masters  in  politics  and  not  subjects.  The  scheme  of 
government  proclaimed  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  formulated 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  the  first  in  the  world's  history, 


—  7  — 

retaining  in  enduring  constitutional  form  the  destiny  of  the  people 
in  their  own  hands.  It  is  lifted  up  before  the  observation  of  the  nations 
as  the  first  whose  institution  rest  on  the  natural  equality  of  rights  among 
men.  It  is  distinguished  from  all  other  republics  by  its  inconsistency 
with  class  superiority  and  social  castes.  It  is  the  only  one  which,  within 
a  defined  area  of  action,  declares  that  each  person  is  his  own  governor. 
It  is  the  first  to  realize  that  truth  is  the  product  of  free  thought,  free 
investigation  and  free  speech;  that  knowledge  enters  this  world  only 
through  the  quickened  faculties  of  each  person.  It  is  the  first  to  know 
that  nature  preceded  government,  and  that  the  genius  of  man  reaches 
highest  when  manifested  along  the  lines  of  divine  wisdom.  It  assumes 
that  civilization  grows  in  splendor  only  as  mankind  conform  to  the  ordi- 
nances of  nature.  It  is  the  first  great  forensic  theatre  of  the  world, 
whereon  all  political  organizations  are  treated  with  equal  hospitality. 

The  founders  of  our  institution  profited  by  the  knowledge  that  the 
powerful  empires  of  the  East,  once  so  opulent,  whose  palaces  and 
temples  were  filled  with  the  riches  of  all  the  then  known  world,  perished 
because  of  the  insolence  of  their  rulers  and  the  denial  by  them  of  equal 
rights  to  the  governed ;  because  the  faculties  of  the  common  people  were 
kept  enfeebled  by  disuse  and  sloth,  and  by  exclusion  from  participation 
in  the  government  under  which  they  lived.  They  realized  that  real  power 
consists  in  knowledge ;  that  it  was  and  is  not  sufficient  to  perfectly  formu- 
late the  principals  of  government,  and  in  addition  declare  the  relation  of 
man  to  his  Creator  and  to  his  fellow  man;  but  that  it  was  essential  to  the 
efficiency  of  each  participant  in  government  that  he  make  an  individual 
study  of  the  principles  of  liberty.  The  Declaration  of  Independence, 
splendid  as  it  is,  and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  perfect  as  it 
is,  does  not  insure  the  government  of  the  country,  nor  are  these  alone 
ade'quate  to  perpetuate  the  happiness  of  this  people.  They  simply  pro- 
claim, in  perfect  phrase,  correct  civil  dogmas.  Nor  was  it  sufficient,  nor 
is  it  sufficient,  that  the  authors  of  these  great  expressions  of  the  principles 
of  government  had  a  cloudless  conception  of  the  subjects  embraced 
within  them.  In  addition  to  proclaiming  the  true  status  of  man  it  is 
necessary  that  he  understand  that  status  and  possess  the  knowledge  and 
virtue  sufficient  to  preserve  it  to  himself. 

In  all  the  older  republics  the  people  generally  were  neither  declared 
free  and  equal,  nor  were  they,  in  fact,  so  treated.  These  so-called  repub- 
lics tolerated  class  and  caste  rule.  They  were  really  oligarchies.  They 
were  a  great  scheme  of  paternalism.  The  capacities  of  the  people  to 
govern  themselves  were  kept  impoverished  by  their  exclusion  from  parti- 
cipation in  government.  They  were  consulted  only  when  the  ruling 
classes  thought  it  expedient  so  to  do.  They  did  not  share  in  the  respon- 
sibilities of  government,  and  hence  were  not  enriched  in  the  experience 
which  comes  from  discharging  responsibility.  This  people  could  not 
inherit  knowledge  from  the  past,  nor  could  they  possess  it  except  through 
the  discipline  of  their  own  faculties.  This  discipline  in  government 


they  were  not  allowed  to  have.  Hence  the  great  body  of  the  people 
were  subjected  to  conditions  which  produced  decay  rather  than 
progress.  This  principal  may  be  illustrated  in  individual  instances.  A 
person  in  perfect  health  may  surrender  himself  to  inactivity,  suspend  his 
arms  in  bandages  for  a  period,  which  bandages  being  removed  leave  his 
limbs  inanimate  and  lifeless.  The  only  source  of  physical  health  is  thus 
shown  to  be  physical  activity.  This  activity  suspended,  there  is  cuts  off 
the  nourishment  which  nature  furnished  to  perfect  health.  The  same  is 
true  of  man  mentally.  Select  the  brightest  one  in  the  community,  take 
him  before  the  probate  court  and  appoint  for  him  a  guardian.  Suspend  the 
function  of  his  will  and  judgment  in  his  own  welfare  by  withdrawing  from 
him  the  power  to  act  for  himself ;  deny  to  him  free  thought,  free  speech 
and  free  action,  and  in  a  brief  time  decay  will  appear.  This  practice  con- 
tinued long  enough  will  produce  imbecility.  This  principle  applies  as 
yell  to  great  bodies  of  people  as  to  individuals.  Place  over  them  patern- 
alism, or  class  rule,  suspend  their  liberty  and  original  power  to  act  along 
the  line  of  their  own  convictions,  and  in  a  limited  time  their  capacity  to 
govern  themselves  will  wither  and  perish.  It  was  such  paternalism  and 
class  domination  of  the  people  of  the  East,  practiced  by  so-called  repub- 
lics, as  well  as  by  other  forms  of  government,  that  subtracted  from  the 
capacity  of  the  people  to  maintain  their  own  liberty.  Philosophy  traces 
the  cause  of  dissolution  of  the  dead  empires  of  the  Orient,  now  visible 
only  in  their  broken  columns,  ruined  palaces  and  prostrate  pillars,  to  their 
denial  of  equal  rights  to  their  citizens ;  to  their  enforced  mental  sterility, 
produced  by  the  suppression  in  them  of  free  thought,  free  speech  and 
action.  In  proportion  as  the  exclusion  of  the  people  from  political 
activity  was  accomplished  by  dominating  classes,  the  insolence  and  intol- 
erance of  such  classes  increased,  until  the  desperate  fury  of  the  masses 
burst  with  tempest  destructiveness  through  the  false  fabric  of  government. 

It  is  often  said  that  nations  fall  by  God's  displeasure.  This  is  at  least 
true  in  the  sense  that  protracted  violations  of  nature's  ordinances  result  in 
death.  The  founders  of  this  government  knew  this.  They  knew  that  the 
strength  and  intelligence  of  the  whole  people  was  made  up  in  the  aggre- 
gate of  strong,  intelligent  men  and  women ;  that  individual  strength  and 
intelligence  come  to  man  and  woman  only  through  conditions  of  individual 
liberty  and  the  processes  of  individual  mental  activity.  This  is  the  ex- 
clusive divine  method  of  introducing  knowledge  into  this  world.  They 
therefore  declared  that  free  thought,  speech  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness 
were  endowments  of  heaven ;  that  it  was  to  secure  these  that  governments 
were  instituted.  These  endowments  are  inalienable.  They  cannot  be 
sold  by  their  possessor,  as  there  is  no  one  authorized  to  purchase  them. 
They  cannot  be  impaired  by  the  State,  for  the  State  is  ordained  by  men  to 
secure  them.  The  development  of  the  individual,  under  this  theory,  is 
accepted  as  the  surest  guarantee  of  lasting  power  and  glory  to  the  State. 

You  behold  befoi  e  you  to-day  a  people  whose  government  is  the  first 
to  rest  upon  the  solid  and  changeless  ordinances  of  nature.  The  govern- 


—  9  — 

ment  will  stand  so  long  as  these  ordinances  are  obeyed.  Obedience  to 
them  is  possible  only  by  those  who  possess  perfect  knowledge  of  them. 
That  knowledge  is  attainable  in  contemplation  of  this  system,  by  and 
through  the  clash  of  honest  public  opinion.  Sincere  agitation,  free 
thought,  free  speech  and  free  political  action  among  all  the  people  are 
the  reliance  of  these  institutions.  Those  who  encourage  free  thought, 
free  speech  and  free  political  participation  in  public  affairs  are  the  friends 
of  this  government.  Those  who  oppose  them  are  its  enemies.  It  follows 
from  these  premises  that  political  indifference  is  the  first  symptom  of 
danger.  Every  person  enjoying  this  great  political  estate,  descended  to 
us  fiomthe  noble  men  whose  genius  and  chivalry  established  it,  is  a 
trustee.  He  takes  the  estate  with  the  obligation  to  preserve  it.  Nothing 
equalling  it  in  excellence  has  ever  been  known  before.  Nothing  surpass- 
ing it  will  arise  in  the  future.  It  rests  upon  pure  truth,  hence  every  man, 
woman  and  child  should  study  it. 

We  have  not  inherited  and  cannot  receive  from  them  the  learning  of 
our  ancestors.  We  must  acquire  knowledge  for  ourselves.  The  severe 
discipline  of  our  fathers'  faculties  and  the  result  thereof  cannot  be  trans- 
mitted to  or  appropriated  by  us.  Each  individual  mind  of  this  generation 
must  work  out  its  own  conclusion,  each  age  acquires  for  itself  its  own 
knowledge.  To  do  this  to  a  degree  insuring  the  safety  of  this  govern- 
ment, all  persons  should  take  part  in  politics.  *? 

Our  institution  knows  no  legal  difference  between  political  parties. 
Sincere  opinion  in  politics  is  protected  and  cherished  under  our  institu- 
tion. An  agreement  in  judgment  is  not  expected  nor  is  it  desirable.  A 
state  of  torpidity,  resulting  from  universal  agreement  in  the  management 
of  the  affairs  of  the  country,  would  result  in  no  progress  whatever.  It  is 
disagreement  that  brings  life  and  advancement. 

The  Constitution  of  the  country  places  the  power  of  the  people  over 
themselves  in  their  own  hands,  but  it  does  not  confer  upon  them  the 
knowledge  necessary  to  wisely  exercise  that  power.  This  knowledge 
comes  to  them  only  through  individual  effort.  This  effort  they  are  bound 
to  make  in  the  interest  of  themselves  and  for  the  common  good.  If  in- 
equalities in  wealth  and  in  position  have  grown  up  in  this  country, 
/whereby  twenty  thousand  people  control  one-half  the  property  of  the 
\country,  the  people  must  remember  that  while  this  state  of  things  has 
been  establishing  itself  they  have  had  a  majority  among  themselves,  ten 
to  one.  The  remedy  against  inequality  is  deposited  by  the  Constitution 
with  the  people.  They  are  empowered  to  search  out  the  pernicious 
causes  of  inequality  and  to  remove  them.  The  possession  of  power  im- 
plies the  obligation  to  use  power  wisely.  That  this  may  be  done,  every 
one  is  bound  to  interest  himself  in  the  subject  of  politics  and  of  govern- 
ment. ^TJiere  ought  to  be  a  free  political  library  established  in  every 
county  seat  throughout  the  country^  Political  knowledge  should  be 
gathered  up  from  every  source  and  held  in  a  public  treasury  accessible  to 
all  alike.  The  administration  of  the  government  by  officers  chosen  by 


—  10  — 

the  people,  ought  to  be  known  and  the  record  thereof  preserved,  within 
the  reach  of  all  the  people  of  the  United  States.  It  is  only  by  the  pos- 
session of  perfect  knowledge  of  politics  that  political  prosperity  can  be 
assured  and  permanency  guaranteed  to  American  institutions. 

The  advantages  of  this  people  will  never  be  enjoyed  by  another.  They 
inhabit  a  virgin  continent,  possessing  a  superior  climate  and  containing 
sources  of  wealth  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  highest  civiliza- 
tion. This  continent  is  the  theatre  whereon  will  be  realized  the  highest 
attainable  prosperity  and  happiness  of  mankind.  Here  are  no  ruins  of 
dismantled  despotisms  surviving  to  corrupt  the  growth  of  free  institu- 
tions. Here  the  highest  industry  will  thrive ;  opulent  cities  will  be  built 
up,  art  will  flourish,  fertile  fields  will  multiply  and  be  peopled  by  the 
hjghest  type  of  cultured  men  and  women. 

f.  Over  America  rests  the  star  of  empire,  reached  at  the  end  of  its  west- 
ward journey.  From  Persia,  through  Greece,  Italy  and  Great  Britain  it 
has  come  to  make  its  final  stand  over  the  last  great  experimental  field  of 
civil  government.  Beyond  there  is  no  more  West,  but  the  unprogressive 
Orient  only.  As  the  star  in  the  East  came  and  stood  over  the  place  where 
the  Saviour  lay,  so  the  star  of  empire  gives  xhis  last  beams  to  us  as  the 
people  to  illustrate  the  highest  achievements  in  man's  career.  If  we  fail 
on  such  a  theatre  as  this,  under  institutions  protecting  and  quickening  in 
every  man  the  free  use  of  his  faculties,  with  the  world's  great  store  of 
knowledge  and  of  human  experience  to  enrich  our  endeavor,  who  in  the 
future  will  succeed?  If  this  empire  of  thought  and  of  law  fail  it  will  be 
because  man  is  vicious,  ignorant  and  corrupt. 


SPEECH    OF 


JEFFERSON   CHANDLER 


HKFORE   THE 


WASHINGTON  STATE  ASSOCIATION 


OF 


DEMOCRATIC    SOCIETIES 


AT 


AUGUST  27,   1890. 


1890: 

BUXTON  &   SKINNER  STATIONEUY  COMPANY, 
ST.    LOUIS. 


CALL    FOR    MEETING 


TO  ORGANIZE  A 


STATE  ASSOCIATION  OF  DEMOCRATIC  SOCIETIES. 


WHEREAS,  There  are  many  local  Democratic  clubs  and  societies  in 
Washington,  but  no  State  association  of  them  existing,  and 

WHKUEAS,  The  National  Association  of  Democratic  Clubs  has  re- 
quested the  Central  Democratic  Club  of  Pierce  County  to  take  the  initi- 
ative in  organizing  a  State  Association  of  Clubs  or  Societies,  auxiliary  to 
the  National  Association,  which  said  Pierce  County  organization  has 
done, 

THEREFORE,  We  the  undersigned,  representing  our  respective  local 
organizations,  do  hereby  join  in  inviting  the  several  Democratic  Clubs, 
or  Societies,  now  existing  in  Washington,  to  send  delegates  to  a  general 
meeting  to  be  held  in  Tacoma,  for  the  purpose  of  organizing  a  State 
Association. 

The  Democrats  in  such  parts  of  the  State  where  local  Clubs  or  Socie- 
ties are  in  contemplation,  are  also  requested  to  send  delegates  to  said 
meeting. 

The  general  meeting  shall  be  held  not  later  than  September  1,  1890, 
but  the  exact  date  is  to  be  fixed,  and  due  notice  thereof  given  by  the 
Central  Democratic  Club  of  Pierce  County,  after  they  shall  have  com- 
pleted all  arrangements  for  the  same,  and  shall  have  procured  the  attend- 
ance of  Democrats  of  national  reputation  as  orators  for  the  occasion. 

Signed  by  representatives  from  twenty-nine  counties. 


ROOMS  OF  THE  CENTRAL  DEMOCRATIC  CLUB  OF  PIERCE  COUNTY,  \ 

TACOMA,  WASH-.,  July  8th,  1890.      j 

Hon.  Jefferson  Chandler,  St.  Louis,  Mo.: 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  There  are  many  local  Democratic  clubs  in  Wash- 
ington, but  no  State  association  of  them  existing.  The  Central  Demo- 
cratic Club  of  Pierce  County  has,  at  the  request  of  Hon.  Chauncey  F. 
Black,  of  York,  Pa.,  President  of  the  National  Association  of  Demo- 
cratic Societies,  taken  the  initiative  in  the  organization  of  the  Washing- 
ton State  Association  of  Democratic  Clubs,  the  same  to  be  auxiliary  to 
the  National  Association. 

To  this  end  authorized  representatives  of  our  party  in  twenty-nine  of 
the  thirty-three  counties  of  this  State  have  joined  in  a  call  to  meet  in  this 
city  not  later  than  September  1st,  next,  the  exact  time  to  be  fixed  by  the 


—  4  — 

Executive  Committee  of  this  organization,  for  the  purpose  of  forming  said 
State  organization.  It  has  this  day  been  determined  to  hold  the  meeting 
on  some  two  days  between  the  1st  and  20th  days  of  August,  next,  which 
will  give  but  little  more  than  two  months  in  which  to  perfect  our  organ- 
ization throughout  the  State  before  the  next  election. 

It  is  the  universal  desire  of  our  party  in  this  State  to  have  present 
with  us  on  this  occasion  some  speakers  of  national  reputation,  at  whose 
feet  we  can  sit  and  learn  anew  the  tenets  of  true  Democracy  and  good 
government. 

When  we  met  to  determine  who  should  be  invited  there  was  great 
unanimity  in  selecting  you.  This  invitation  is  most  cordially  concurred 
in  by  members  of  the  city  government — the  mayor  and  majority  of  the 
city  council  being,  I  am  most  happy  to  say,  of  the  Democratic  faith. 

I  am  directed  to  say  that  arrangements  will  be  made  to  have  you 
come  via  the  Northern  Paritic  Railroad.  So  you  can,  at  Livingstone, 
Mon.,  leave  the  main  line  of  the  road  for  one  or  more  days'  visit  to  the 
National  Park,  the  hotels  in  which  are  forty  miles  south  of  Livingstone. 

At  Spokane  Falls,  in  this  State,  and  within  twenty-five  miles  of  our 
eastern  boundary,  you  will  be  met  by  a  special  committee  from  this  city 
and  escorted  across  the  State  in  a  manner  commensurate  with  your  repu- 
tation. You  can  return  home  via  Portland,  Ore.,  and  Omaha,  Neb  , 
over  the  Union  Pacific  Hallway  or  via  San  Francisco  and  Los  Angeles, 
Cal.,  over  the  Southern  Pacific  Railway. 

For  beautiful  scenery,  fertility  of  soil  and  salubrity  of  climate,  our 
State  is  without  an  equal,  and  our  Democrats  are  not  surpassed  in 
America  for  their  devotion  to  sound  principles  and  an  earnest  purpose 
to  secure  their  triumph. 

Enclosed  you  will  find  a  copy  of  President  Black's  letter,  with  a  copy 
of  the  general  call  authorizing  the  action  of  this  organization. 

We  believe  that  we  can  make  your  visit  amongst  us  enjoyable,  and 
are  confident  that  your  presence  with  us  at  the  time  mentioned  will  be  of 
the  greatest  possible  benefit  to  the  Democracy  of  this  State. 

The  exact  days  in  August  upon  which  the  meeting  will  be  held  can 
be  made  to  accommodate  your  arrival  here,  and  will  be  so  named  when 
we  shall  have  received  your  formal  acceptance  of  this  invitation. 

We  hope  for  an  early  and  favorable  reply  from  you. 
I  am  sir,  yours  truly, 

GEO.  HAZZARD, 

Secretary. 


SPEECH  OF  JEFFERSON  CHANDLER. 


MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  GENTLEMEN  : 

I  deem  it  a  special  honor  to  meet  and  address  the  Democracy  of  this 
young  and  intrepid  State.  There  can  be  no  more  impressive  experience 
than  witnessing  the  establishment  of  the  foundation  of  a  new  civil  govern- 
ment. This  is  the  first  great  convocation  of  the  Democracy  of  Washing-- 
ton since  her  name  as  a  State  gave  a  new  and  lustrous  star  to  the 
American  flag.  You  have  met  on  this  occasion  to  give  utterance  to  and 
begin  the  operations  of  the  principles  of  government,  in  obedience  to 
which  you  will  mold  the  destiny  of  this  State.  The  events  of  the  world 
have  been  so  arranged,  as  that  civilization  completes  its  western  march  on 
the  borders  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  last  great  seat  of  civil  authority 
and  of  industry  and  of  commerce  will  be  established  in  this  region.  The 
conditions  presented  at  the  beginning  of  the  development  of  this  commu- 
nity will  likely  continue  during  its  career  and  powerfully  influence  its 
whole  future.  On  the  north,  the  greatest  commercial  and  maritime  power 
of  the  world  is  building  rival  cities  and  is  establishing  subsidized  lines 
of  commerce  to  control  the  transportation  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  Through 
her  sleepless  diplomacy,  England  has  lately  persuaded  Japan  to  grant 
to  English  subjects  access  to  all  her  commercial  centers.  China,  resting 
upon  veneration  for  the  past  and  the  complacent  aversion  to  progress, 
crooks  her  decrepit  knee  to  the  assumed  commercial  supremacy  of 
England  on  the  seas.  Central  and  South  America  possess  a  population 
assembled  from  the  nations  of  Europe,  who  speak  a  language  unfamiliar 
to  the  general  American  public.  These  countries  have  business  and  bank- 
ing relations  with  the  people  whose  language  they  speak.  They  have, 
however,  one  thing  in  common  with  us.  They  believe  in  Republican 
institutions.  They  are  building  nations  upon  the  dogmas  of  civil  liberty, 
to  which  this  country  is  committed.  This  fact  will,  in  time,  overcome 
the  impediments  to  a  closer  commercial  union.  From  a  soil  of  common 
constitutional  sympathy  will  spring  alliances  offensive  and  defensive  be- 
tween them.  It  is  not  difficult  to  secure  great  prosperity  and  rapid 
development  to  a  community  like  Illinois,  located  in  the  center  of  Ameri- 
can influences,  all  co-operating  in  its  progress.  The  State  of  Washington 
is  surrounded  by  conditions  and  rivalries  peculiar  to  herself.  She  doubt- 
less possesses  the  genius  to  overcome  the  difficulties  mentioned  and  meet 
the  rivalries  suggested  and  to  adjust  herself  to  the  circumstances  affect- 
ing her  growth. 


—  6  — 

This,  however,  is  a  political  occasion,  designed  to  formulate  an  ex- 
pression of  principles  consistent  with  the  Democratic  theory  of  govern- 
ment. This  convention  is  assembled  on  the  assumption  that  progress  lies 
along  the  lines  of  pure  Democracy.  Every  system  of  thought  has  its 
standards  of  excellence.  In  painting,  in  sculpture  and  in  music,  in 
poetry  and  in  philosophy  the  old  masters  furnished  the  highest  criteria. 
The  principle  applies  equally  to  politics.  It  is  known  to  the  world  that 
periods  occur  wherein  clearer  conceptions  of  right  and  wrong,  and  of 
truth,  arc  given  to  mankind;  that  great  characters  are  born  to  give  ex- 
pression to  these  conceptions  in  such  form  as  to  preserve  them  among 
the  treasures  of  permanent  knowledge.  Whether  this  is  inspiration, 
or  the  breaking  of  some  spiritual  wave  across  the  pathway  of  history, 
thrown  from  the  infinite  deep  of  wisdom,  no  one  knows.  Cer- 
tain it  is  that  a  brighter  light  comes  periodically  to  the 
•human  family.  This  Government  was  set  up  during  one  of  these 
intervals  of  intellectual  and  moral  illumination.  The  Constitution  under 
which  we  live  is  the  most  perfect  definition  of  civil  liberty  ever  recorded 
in  history.  The  men  who  produced  it  and  put  it  into  operation  were 
specially  endowed.  They  are  really  the  old  masters  in  our  politics. 
Looking  at  Democracy  in  the  light  of  this  definition,  by  the  founders  of 
the  government,  we  discover  its  first  principles  to  be  loyalty  to  the  Union. 
In  those  days  the  doctrine  of  nullification,  secession  and  of  violent 
political  methods  were  unknown.  These  are  corruptions  appearing  since. 
The  loyalty  of  Democracy  to  the  Union  must  be  placed  above  suspicion. 
This  State  acted  on  this  assumption  when  it  united  itself  with  the  others 
under  the  Constitution  forever.  When  political  differences  arise  in 
future  they  must  be  settled  within  the  Union  and  by  peaceful  means. 
The  young  Democracy  of  this  vast  region  commits  itself  to  these  proposi- 
tion>.  It  should  assert  its  own  judgments  and  opinions  within  the  party 
in  carrying  them  to  execution,  and  should  not  bow  itself  in  servile 
obedience  to  the  unsound  doctrines  of  others.  The  great  North  must  br 
won  to  the  Democracy.  This  cannot  be  accomplished  under  Confederate 
kadrrship.  This  peerless  people  have  no  right  to  subject  their  political 
future  to  the  domination  of  men  distinguished  in  breaking  down  the  Con- 
stitutional form  of  government.  We  are  entering  upon  a  new  era  and 
must  select  men  to  carry  our  political  banner  across  the  forensic  fields  of 
the  future  uuimplicated  in  the  Rebellion.  The  American  people  have 
placed  no  disability  upon  them.  They  are  as  free  to  act  as  others,  but  in 
the  face  of  the  present  state  of  public  sentiment  in  the  country  they  are 
not  eligible  leaders  for  the  Democracy. 

TARIFF. 

The  subject  of  raising  Federal  Revenue,  as  that  subject  is  at  present 
presented  to  the  American  people,  involves  a  consideration  of  the  Consti- 
tution itself.  Though  the  United  States  may  provide  itself  revenue  by 
direct  taxation,  yet  no  party  has,  during  the  history  of  the  government, 


found  that  method  a  popular  one.  The  position  of  the  Democracy  in  respect 
of  raising  revenue  by"  impost  duties  is  clearly  and  succinctly  expressed  in 
President  Jackson's  message  to  Congress,  dated  December  7,  1830 : 

"  The  object  of  the  tariff  is  objected  to  by  some  as  unconstitutional, 
and  it  is  considered  by  almost  all  as  defective  in  many  of  its  parts. 

"The  power  to  impose  duties  on  imports  originally  belonged  to  the 
several  States.  The  right  to  adjust  those  duties  with  a  view  to  the 
encouragement  of  domestic  branches  of  industry  is  so  completely  inci- 
dental to  that  power  that  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  the  existence  of  the  one 
without  the  other.  The  States  have  delegated  their  whole  authority  over 
imports  to  the  general  government  without  limitation  or  restriction,  say- 
ing the  very  inconsiderable  reservation  relating  to  their  inspection  laws. 
This  authority  having  thus  entirely  passed  from  the  States,  the  right  to 
exercise  it  for  the  purpose  of  protection  does  not  exist  in  them  and,  con- 
sequently, if  it  be  not  possessed  by  the  general  government  it  must  be 
extinct.  Our  political  system  would  thus  present  the  anomaly  of  a  people 
stripped  of  the  right  to  foster  their  own  industry  and  to  counteract  the 
most  selflsh  and  destructive  policy  which  might  be  adopted  by  foreign 
nations.  This  surely  cannot  be  the  case;  this  indispensable  power  thus 
surrendered  by  the  States  must  be  within  the  scope  of  the  authority  on 
the  subject  expressly  delegated  to  Congress." 

"In  this  conclusion  I  am  confirmed  as  well  by  the  opinions  of  Presi- 
dents Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison  and  Monroe,  who  have  each 
repeatedly  recommended  the  exercise  of  this  right  under  the  Constitution, 
as  by  the  uniform  practice  of  Congress,  the  continued  acquiescence  of 
the  States  and  the  general  understanding  of  the  people." 

This  definition  of  the  limitations  of  constitutional  authority  to  levy 
and  collect  impost  duties  is  the  established  doctrine  of  the  party  on  that 
subject.  The  propositions  so  lucidly  set  forth  in  General  Jackson's 
message  are  restated  with  radiant  clearness  in  the  Democratic  platform 
of  1884,  upon  which  President  Cleveland  was  elected.  This  platform  and 
these  doctrines  were  approved  by  a  large  popular  majority  of  the  American 
people.  They  secured  also  the  approval  of  a  majority  of  the  electoral 
vote  of  the  country. 

The  Democracy  is  composed  principally  of  the  producers  of  the 
country.  The  Democratic  party  is  essentially  the  party  of  the  laborers 
and  business  people.  The  logic  of  its  position  and  of  its  constitution  is 
to  discover,  promote  and  defend  the  interests  of  the  laboring  people  of 
this  country.  Hence  it  could  not  promulgate  principles  which  did  not 
have  for  their  primary  object  an  economical  administration  of  the  govern- 
meitt  and  the  welfare  of  the  people,  upon  whose  intelligence  and  support 
it  depends.  It  would  be  wearisome  on  an  occasion  like  this  to  consider 
with  much  detail  a  subject  so  expansive  as  that  of  the  tariff.  The 
discxissiou  of  it  may  therefore  be  properly  limited  to  a  statement 
of  the  principles  upon  which  the  respective  parties  in  politics 
rest  their  respective  doctrines.  The  Republican  party  declares  that 


the    power    vested    in    Congress,    under    the    Constitution,    to    levy 
impost  duties,  includes  the  power  to  impose  such  duties  as  will  prohibit 
the  introduction  of  foreign  merchandise  and  products  into  the  markets 
of  this  country.     This  doctrine  was  announced  for  the  first  time  in 
American  politics  in  the  Republican  platform  of  1888.     Heretofore  im- 
post duties  have  been  levied  principally  for  the  collection  of  federal 
revenue.     It  is  now  declared  that  the  Federal  Government  may  forbid 
the  people  of  the  respective  States  from  buying  or  selling  in  any  of  the 
markets  of  the  world  outside  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States.     In 
other  words,  the  Republican  platform  of  1888  announces  the  power  in 
Congress  to  establish  a  commercial  embargo  in  time  of  peace  against  the 
products  of  the  civilized  world.     The  States,  prior  to  the  establishment 
of  the  Union,  held  absolute  power  over  all  their  commerce,  domestic  and 
foreign.     When  the  Union  was  formed  the  States  still  retained  power 
over  their  domestic  commerce,  but  granted  jurisdiction  to  Congress  to 
levy  impost    duties    upon  foreign  commerce  and  to  regulate  the  same. 
Neither  the  power  to  tax  nor  the  power  to  regulate  includes  the  power  to 
destroy  commerce.     The  people  of  the  respective   States,  in  times  of 
peace,  have  the  same  legal  right  to  buy  and  sell  in  the  markets  of  the 
world  now  as  they  possessed  before  the  creation  of  the  Union,  subject 
only  to  federal  authority  to  levy  impost  duties  upon  foreign  imports  and 
to  regulate  such  commerce.     The  power  to  regulate  is  power  to  preserve 
while  in  transit,  and  is  not  power  to  inhibit  altogether.     The  courts  of 
this  country  have  never  failed  to  distinguish  between  the  power  to  regu- 
late and  the  power  to  destroy.    These  powers  lie  in  distinct  hemispheres. 
These      differences      between      the      parties  are      fundamental.     Under 
the    exercise    of    the    power    claimed    to    exist    by  the    Republican 
party      Congress      may      deny      to      this       great       country,       lyirfg 
upon      the       Pacific       Coast,     the       right      to       have       commercial 
communion  with  the  Orient,  or  with  South  American  countries.     Those 
who   support  the   Republican  party  affirm  this  power.     They  commit 
themselves  to  the  doctrine  that  a  majority  of  Congress,  at  any  time,  can 
command  the  people  of  the  Pacific  Coast  to  cease  trade  with  all  foreign 
countries,  and  to  limit  their  purchases  and  commercial  intercourse  with 
the  people  of  the  several  States  of  the  Union.     These  people  have  a  nat- 
ural and  constitutional  right  to  the  ocean  and  to  the  great  advantages 
which  come  to  them  from  their  geographical  situation  upon  the  ocean. 
The  facility  with  which  they  may  transact  business  with  foreign  coun- 
tries across  the  ocean  is  a  part  of  their    constitutional  inheritance.     Any 
interpretation  of  the  Constitution   of  the  United   States,  which  denies 
these  rights  in  time  of  peace,  is  erroneous.     The  right  of  the  American 
citizen  to  buy  what  ne  pleases  and  where  he  pleases  is  a  part  of  his  civil 
liberty  and  is  subject  to  no  restraint  by  the  Federal  Government.     In 
transporting  to  or  from  this  country  the  articles  which  he  purchases  or 
sells,  he  must  conform  to  the  regulations  which  Congress  prescribes  for 
the  preservation  of  the  property  transported.     He  must  also  pay  the  im- 
post duties  levied  upon  the  articles  imported  for  his  use,  subject  to  the 


—  9  — 

payment  of  these  duties,  and  to  suitable  regulations  for  the  safety  of 
property  in  transit.  His  right  to  trade  with  foreign  people,  where  he 
pleases  and  where  he  chooses,  cannot  constitutionally  be  abridged  in 
times  of  peace. 

RECIPROCITY. 

In  the  field  of  political  economy,  adjacent  to  the  tariff,  lies  the  sub- 
ject of  reciprocity.  Before  the  war  the  great  leaders  of  Democratic 
opinion  built  up  commercial  intercourse  between  this  and  many  other 
countries  through  reciprocity  treaties.  Rates  of  impost  duties  were  fixed 
in  the  text  of  the  treaties  themselves.  A  suitable  illustration  of  this 
practice  is  found  in  the  treaty  with  China,  proclaimed  April  18,  1846. 
This  system  of  communion  reduced  the  exchange  of  commodities  between 
the  countries  to  the  simplest  business  basis.  Under  mutual  treaty  obli- 
gations banking  and  other  business  institutions  were  established  by  each 
party  to  the  treaty  in  the  country  of  the  other.  This  commercial  scheme 
wrought  out  a  closer  friendship  among  the  people  of  the  contracting 
countries,  and  reduced  to  the  consumers  of  ea'ch  the  cost  of  the  products 
of  both. 

Mr.  Cleveland  was  elected  President  upon  a  platform  pledging  the 
restoration  of  this  practice.  It  declared  for  closer  and  more  intimate 
commercial  relations  with  the  countries  of  South  America.  Bills  author- 
izing the  assembling  of  the  Pan-American  Congress  in  Washington  were 
passed  during  Mr.  Cleveland's  administration,  and  that  great  convocation 
met  and  communed  as  a  result  of  Democratic  diplomacy.  Mr.  Elaine 
took  up  the  threads  ot  the  project  where  they  had  fallen  from  the  hands 
of  the  defeated  Democracy.  The  Democratic  party  owes  it  to  itself  to 
re-declare  and  reiterate  this  policy  on  every  great  occasion  when  its 
opinions  are  publicly  proclaimed. 

We  live  in  a  period  of  constant  and  profound  economic  changes. 
Within  the  last  seven  years  nearly  every  civilized  country  of  the  world 
has  increased  its  impost  duties  upon  the  products  of  other  countries. 
Many  of  the  European  nations  have  excluded  altogether  the  bread-stuff 
and  meat  products  of  America.  While  seeking  the  introduction  of  their 
articles  of  commerce  into  our  market  free,  they  slam  the  doors  of  their 
country  in  the  face  of  American  products.  We  have  no  power  to  open  their 
ports  to  our  products  by  legislation.  We  may  throw  ours  open  to  the 
world  if  we  choose. 

The  policy  of  reciprocity  sends  its  roots  back  through  our  history  to 
that  period  of  American  politics  when  the  old  masters  controlled  public 
affairs.  It  gives  protection  to  our  industrial  system  of  the  highest  and 
wisest  character,  and  such  protection  as  can  be  attained  in  no  other  way. 
This  policy  should  be  taken  up  from  the  deep  neglect  into  which  it  was 
plunged  by  the  civil  war.  Under  this  policy  we  can  provide  against  the 
laying  of  export  duties  upon  articles  produced  in  other  countries  and  ad- 
mitted free  into  this  country.  Not  long  since  the  duty  was  removed  from 


—  10  — 

coffee  to  give  the  American  people,  in  part,  a  free  breakfast  table,  where- 
upon Brazil,  the  coffee  producing  country,  subjected  that  article  leaving 
her  ports  to  an  export  duty.  This  operated  to  keep  up  the  price  on 
coffee  here  and  to  secure  to  the  treasury  of  Brazil  $100,000,000  in  rev- 
enue derived  from  such  export  duties.  This  vast  sum  of  money  was  paid 
by  the  consumers  of  coffee,  and  the  people  derived  practically  no  benefit 
from  the  removal  of  American  duties  upon  it.  If  coffee  was  admitted 
into  tills  country  free  from  export  and  import  duties  under  a  reciprocity 
treaty  with  Brazil  which  conceded  to  the  producers  of  this  country  the 
privilege  to  ship  to  Brazil  articles  produced  here,  a  substantial  double 
benefit  would  result  from  such  an  arrangement.  A  wider  market  would 
have  been  built  up  for  American  products  and  cheaper  prices  fixed  for 
articles  imported  from  the  country  with  which  reciprocal  arrangements 
existed. 

There  is  no  reason  why  we  should  throw  our  markets  for  sugar  open 
to  such  countries  as  Spain,  while  they  exclude  American  flour  from  their 
markets.  We  buy  from  the  countries  south  of  us  rubber,  coffee  and 
sugar  to  the  value  of  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  annually.  We  sell 
to  these  same  countries  about  eighty  millions  of  dollars  annually,  leaving 
a  balance  against  us  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  million  dollars  to  be 
paid  in  gold  coin.  Under  this  system  our  products  are  kept  out  of  these 
countries  by  high  duties  levied  against  them  there.  It  is  now  known 
that  the  people  south  of  us  stand  ready  to  take  off  the  duties  from  many 
of  our  products  if  we  will  let  their  sugar  in  free.  Their  sugar,  under  an 
arrangement  like  this,  will  be  doubly  beneficial  to  the  American  people. 
The  markets  of  our  products  here  will  be  extended  and  the  prices  of  arti- 
cles consumed  lessened.  If  this  is  not  free  trade,  it  is  at  least  fair  trade. 
This  policy  would  retain  in  circulation  here  the  large  quantity  of  gold 
annually  shipped  out  of  the  country  to  pay  balances  against  us.  The 
country  would  thus  be  spared  a  constant  diminution  of  the  circulating 
medium  and  the  resulting  disturbance  of  values  thereof.  Our  whole  in- 
dustrial system  would  run  more  smoothly  and  with  assured  stability 
under  a  system  of  commerce  made  fixed  and  definite  by  reciprocity 
agreements. 

IMMIGRATION. 

The  purity  and  growth  of  American  society  depends  much  on  keep- 
ing up  the  standard  of  intelligence,  efficiency  and  morality  of  the  great 
labor  elements  of  the  country.  To  do  this,  the  vicious  and  pauper  con- 
tributions of  other  countries  to  this  ought  to  cease.  The  myriads  of 
ignorant,  ill-fed  and  ill -paid  people  of  crowded  and  unprogresslve 
nations,  sterile  of  sympathy  for  our  institutions,  have  no  business  in  this 
country.  We  stand  on  the  dignity  of  labor  as  a  cardinal  principle  of 
politics.  This  dignity  should  be  strengthened  and  encouraged.  To  do 
this  the  labor  of  this  land  must  be  kept  uncontaminated  with  the  servile 
spirit  of  semi-slave  labor.  Those  who  work  are  citizens  as  well  as  toilers. 
It  is  on  their  intelligence  and  morality  the  country  relies  for  the  preser- 


— 11  — 

vation  of  its  institutions.  It  is  unjust  to  this  element  to  throw  into 
competition  with  it  the  restless,  furious  and  disturbing  influences  that 
come  from  abroad,  and  to  degrade  it  with  the  poor  and  decrepit  of  other 
lands.  Any  honest  and  well-disposed  person,  sympathizing  with  our 
race  and  our  institutions,  who  desires  to  become  a  citizen  of  this  country 
and  commits  himself  to  its  laws  and  government,  is  welcome.  Those 
who  come  to  degrade  its  labor,  to  threaten  its  institutions  and  disturb  its 
industrial  repose,  ought  not  to  be  allowed  a  footing  here. 

SILVER  COINAGE. 

The  Democratic  party  is  pledged  to  so  administer  the  government 
that  no  constituent  power  thereof  shall  be  executed  to  enrich  one  class 
or  section  and  correspondingly  oppress  or  impoverish  another  class  or 
section.  To  illustrate :  The  Federal  Government  possesses  power  to 
coin  money  and  to  regulate  the  value  thereof.  This  power,  if  ignorantly 
orvenally  used,  may  produce  industrial  depression.  There  is  no  power  of 
the  government  more  vigilantly  watched  by  the  money  interests  of  the 
country  than  this,  nor  is  there  any  power  an  abuse  of  which  so  profound- 
ly disquiets  industrial  and  producing  interests.  The  power  to  regulate 
the  value  of  money  carries  with  its  exercise  the  regulation  of  the  value 
of  everything  that  money  represents.  Hence,  if  there  is  an  unwise  or 
unfair  regulation  of  the  value  of  money,  every  producer  of  values  repre- 
sented by  money  suffers.  The  decrease  of  the  volume  of  the  circulat- 
ing medium  increases  the  quantity  of  products  and  of  labor  given  in 
exchange  for  money.  Contraction  of  the  necessary  volume  of  currency 
or  a  refusal  to  expand  the  volume  thereof  to  keep  pace  with  the  increase 
of  population  and  the  demands  of  business  is  protanto  confiscation  of 
property.  Farmers  and  producers  are  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  the 
abundance  of  gold  and  silver  in  this  country.  The  rapid  increase  of  gold 
supply  since  the  discovery  thereof  in  this  country  raised  the  prices  of 
products  and  of  labor.  This  is  admitted.  A  decrease  of  the  supply  or  of 
the  coinage  thereof  would  have  an  opposite  effect.  It  would  have  been 
unjust  to  refuse  to  coin  gold  because  the  supply  increased.  The  result 
of  such  refusal  would  have  cut  off  the  farmer  and  producer  from  the 
benefit  of  the  increased  supply  and  the  consequent  increase  of  the  value 
of  products.  The  American  people,  as  a  body,  contributed  to  the  discov- 
ery and  development  of  the  precious  metals.  They  paid  for  the  territory 
in  which  they  are  deposited.  They  constructed  the  railway  system, 
mostly  at  public  expense  by  land  donations  and  government  bonds, 
through  the  great  mountain  region  where  gold  and  silver  are  found. 
They  furnished  the  pioneer  army  that  discovered  and  developed  them. 
Every  individual  living  under  the  American  flag  is  entitled  to  a  part  of  the 
general  development  and  progress  of  the  country.  If  great  sources  of 
wealth  are  discovered  and  developed  which  makes  the  burdens  of  life 
lighter  and  the  necessaries  of  existence  cheaper,  it  is  a  crime  against 
progress  to  limit  the  good  effect  of  such  discovery  and  development. 


—  12  — 

IF   THE   CIRCULATING    MEDIUM 

is  constantly  diminished,  it  becomes  more  and  more  difficult  to  pay  the 
debts.  It  is  assumed  that  there  is  about  twenty-one  dollars  per  capita  of 
circulating  medium  out  among  the  people  in  the  entire  United  States. 
There  is  no  means  of  ascertaining  with  accuracy  the  amount  of  money  per 
capita  in  actual  circulation  in  the  West.  The  railroads  are  mostly  owned 
in  the  East.  Their  net  earnings  amounts  to  millions  of  dollars.  Most  of 
this  money  goes  East,  where  railroad  securities  are  held.  The  interest 
on  State,  municipal  and  farm  indebtedness  amounts  to  millions  of  dollars 
yearly.  Most  of  this  is  sent  into  Eastern  markets,  where  the  indebted- 
ness is  held.  A  large  amount  of  money  is  also  taken  out  of  the  West 
annually  to  pay  insurance  premiums  to  Eastern  insurance  companies. 

Under  this  constant  diminution  of  the  currency  the  amount  per  capita 
in  the  East  is  constantly  increased,  and  the  amount  per  capita  in  the  West 
is  correspondingly  decreased.  It  is  doubtful  whether  there  is  to  exceed 
ten  dollars  per  capita  in  circulation  through  the  entire  Western  country. 
The  growing  difficulties  of  obtaining  money  multiply  the  difiiculties  of 
p.'iying  debts.  If  there  is  no  relief  to  a  great  section  of  the  country  that 
JIMS  become  involved  in  contracts  to  pay  interest  burdens,  which  it  is  im- 
possible to  bear,  then  general  bankruptcy  in  that  section  must  follow.  If 
legal  relief  be  possible  from  this  state  of  things  it  is  the  first  duty  of  the 
government  to  furnish  it.  It  is  believed  that  the  power  of  government 
can  be  so  exercised  as  in  a  measure,  at  least,  to  save  the  Western  country 
from  bankruptcy.  The  Federal  Government  has  exclusive  power  to  coin 
money  and  to  regulate  the  value  thereof.  This  power  implies  that  the 
value  of  money  ought  to  be  fixed  and  regulated  by  law,  else  the  power 
would  not  have  been  given.  Tliis  power  is  continuous  and  may  be  exer- 
cised from  time  to  time  as  Congress  may  determine.  The  regulation  of  tlie 
value  of  money  involves  the  power  to  affect  the  ability  of  debtors  to  dis- 
charge their  obligation.  The  highest  consideration  that  can  govern  the 
exercise  of  this  power  is  the  welfare  of  a  great  body  of  the  people  affected 
by  it.  No  legal  wrong  is  done  by  so  regulating  the  value  of  money  as  to 
prevent  the  growing  oppression  of  debts.  The  welfare  and  prosperity  of 
the  citizen  is  the  sovereign  object  of  government.  The  chief  end  of  govern- 
ment is  not  to  preserve  austere  and  crushing  methods  of  collecting  debts. 
Tliis  is  illustrated  in  insolvent  and  bankruptcy  legislation,  from  time  to 
time  enacted.  Periods  of  depression  occur,  commercial  and  industrial 
despair  at  times  prevail.  During  these  periods  legal  relief  is  furnished  to 
the  debtor  class  by  a  legal  cancellation  of  the  debts,  which,  for  the  time 
being,  operate  to  suspend  business  activity.  This  is  deemed  wise,  in  a 
general  business  way,  to  the  end  that  the  citizen,  the  initial  social  force, 
may  rally  again  and  once  more  enter  upon  the  active  production  of  wealth. 

Tliat  it  is  lawful  to  so  regulate  the  value  of  money  as  to  make  the 
payment  of  obligations  no  more  difficult  than  when  the  debt  was  con- 
tracted, has  been  decided  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in 
defining  the  obligation  of  a  contract.  The  Court  say,  "  The  obligation  is 


—  13  — 

to  pay  money  which  the  law  shall  recognize  as  money  when  the  payment 
is  made.  Every  contract  for  the  payment  of  money  simply,  is  necessarily 
subject  to  the  constitutional  power  of  the  government  over  the  currency, 
whatever  that  power  may  be,  and  the  obligation  of  the  parties  is  therefore 
assumed  with  reference  to  that  power." 

Hence  it  is  the  right  and  legal  duty  of  Congress  to  so  control  the 
value  of  money  by  its  legislation  as  that  the  debtor  class  be  not  op- 
pressed. If  commercial  conditions  exist  which  increase  the  burdens  of 
indebtedness  at  the  time  of  payment  vastly  beyond  what  they  were  at 
the  time  of  the  creation  of  the  debt,  the  power  of  the  government  should 
be  so  exercised  as  to  mitigate  such  increased  burdens.  Money  is  a  mere 
representation  of  value.  The  products  of  the  country  are  the  real  value. 
Such  a  condition  of  currency  as  requires  larger  quantities  thereof  to  pay 
debts,  when  due,  than  were  required  to  pay  the  same  debts  when  con- 
tracted, is  oppressive  and  justifies  an  adjustment  of  the  value  of  money 
to  such  changed  conditions. 

In  1865  the  National  debt  was  two  thousand,  six  hundred  and  eighty 
millions,  six  hundred  and  forty-seven  thousand,  eight  hundred  and  sixty- 
nine  dollars.  At  that  time  wheat  was  worth  in  the  market  one  dollar 
and  fifty-six  cents  per  bustiel.  The  entire  National  indebtedness  could 
have  been  paid  off  and  discharged  with  one  thousand,  seven  hundred 
and  eighty  millions,  three  hundred  and  sixty-four  thousand,  two  hundred 
and  eighty-eight  bushels  of  wheat.  In  1889  the  debt  had  been  reduced  to 
one  thousand  millions  of  dollars,  yet,  at  the  then  price  of  wheat,  eighty 
cents  per  bushel,  one  thousand  two  hundred  and  fifty  million  bushels  of 
wheat  were  required  to  pay  the  debt.  The  increase  of  the  burdens  of 
private  and  municipal  indebtedness  between  the  two  periods  mentioned 
was  the  same.  It  will  be  seen  that  two  bushels  of  wheat  in  1889  repre- 
sented the  value  only  of  about  one  bushel  of  wheat  in  1865. 

The  debts  hanging  over  the  country  have  become  twice  as  difficult  of 
payment  since  the  war  closed  as  they  were  in  1865.  In  1873,  Congress, 
for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  government,  demonetized  silver  and 
made  gold  the  single  standard  of  value. 

This  act  was  dictated  by  Eastern  influence.  The  East  possesses  power 
over  the  West  and  South  through  its  abundance  of  money.  Any  assump- 
tion that  the  East  is  superior  in  intelligence  to  the  West,  or  wiser  in 
statesmanship,  is  baseless.  It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that  the  West 
is  dominated  by  the  East.  By  controlling  the  standard  and  quantity  of 
money,  it  controls  the  business  and  consequently  the  politics  of  the  West. 
The  development  of  silver  is  a  Western  enterprise.  If  freely  coined  into 
money,  the  despotism  of  gold  and  of  the  East  will  be  broken.  There  is  no 
lack  of  wisdom  in  providing  an  abundance  of  money,  nor  is  there  danger 
in  the  double  standard  of  gold  and  silver.  Alexander  Hamilton,  among 
the  wisest  and  most  conservative  of  American  statesmen,  gives  it  as  his 
opinion,  "That  a  preference  ought  to  be  given  to  neither  of  the  metals, 
gold  or  silver,  for  the  money  unit."  He  recommends  that  Congress 


—  14  — 

attach  the  unit  indiscriminately  to  both  metals.  The  office  of  money  is 
to  quicken  production  and  arouse  industry.  Facilities  for  industrial 
development  and  progress  can  work  no  injury.  Proper  Federal  legislation 
will  bring  relief  to  the  depressed  West,  but  such  legislation  can  only  be 
procured  by  the  unity  in  support  of  it  of  the  great  region  of  country 
needing  it. 

There  is  nothing  communistic  or  revolutionary  in  the  free  coinage  of 
gold  and  silver.  They  are  constitutional  money.  Their  free  coinage  can 
be  no  just  ground  of  complaint  by  the  creditor  class.  Goli  and  silver 
currency  rests  upon  the  Constitution,  upon  Democratic  adoption  and  upon 
the  commendation  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  the  country,  including 
among  them  Alexander  Hamilton.  Free  coinage  of  gold  and  silver  would 
bring  relief  to  the  distressed  agricultural  interests  of  the  West,  and 
ought  at  once  to  be  provided  for. 

NATIONAL  BANKS. 

As  a  supplemental  consideration  to  the  free  coinage  of  silver,  the 
Democracy  is  called  upon  by  the  great  farming  constituents  of  the  coun- 
try to  declare  its  purpose  touching  the  retention  of  the  National  Bank 
system  as  a  part  of  its  permanent  monetary  policy  for  the  future.  This  ' 
system  is  the  product  of  the  war  and  is  anomalous  in  character.  The 
power  to  determine  the  quantity  of  currency  in  circulation  is  reposed  in 
Congress,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  To  delegate  this 
power  to  corporations  dealing  in  money  seems  to  be  out  of  sympathy 
with  a  proper  exercise  of  constitutional  power  conferred  upon  a  legisla- 
tive body.  The  world  is  agreed  upon  the  proposition  that  the  power  and 
value  of  money  depends  largely  upon  the  quantity  in  circulation.  Cor- 
porations dealing  in  money  are  interested  in  increasing  its  power  and 
value  in  their  hands.  If  such  corporations,  therefore,  have  the  power  to 
fix  the  quantity,  they  practically  have  the  power  to  fix  and  regulate  its 
value,  which  is  a  power  that  should  be  exercised  by  Congress  and  not  by 
corporations,  organized  for  the  purpose  of  gain.  The  government  allows 
National  Banks  to  issue  their  notes,  secured  by  government  bonds,  but 
puts  an  annual  tax  on  the  issue.  That  operates  to  limit  the  quantity  of 
bank  paper  issued.  The  power  of  banks  to  limit  their  circulation,  to 
which  power  is  added  inducements  to  limit  it,  results  as 
a  constant  restraint  upon  the  volume  of  currency  going 
into  circulation.  These  great  monied  corporations,  by  reason  of 
their  constitution,  work  in  sympathy  and  accord  with  each  other  and 
naturally  unite  in  trust  relations  with  each  other  to  secure  the  largest 
possible  profit  out  of  their  business.  Their  nature  and  their  interest 
unifies  them  as  a  great  controlling  money  power  against  the  producers 
and  consumers  of  the  country.  This  statement  is  verified  by  Secretary 
Chase,  who  lamented  that  he  had  ever  given  his  support  to  the  system. 
He  says:  "My  agency  in  procuring  the  passage  of  the  national  banking 
act  was  the  greatest  financial  mistake  of  my  life.  It  has  built  up  a  mon- 


—  15  — 

opoly  that  affects  every  interest  in  the  country.  It  should  be  repealed. 
But  before  this  can  be  accomplished  the  people  will  be  arrayed  on  one 
side  and  the  banks  on  the  other  in  a  contest  such  as  we  have  never  seen 
in  this  country." 

These  institutions  are  forbidden  by  law  to  loan  money  on  real  estate 
security.  The  people  owning  and  operating  landed  interests  are  thereby 
excluded  from  the  benefits  and  patronage  of  these  banks.  This  is  a  direct 
discrimination  against  the  agricultural  interests  of  the  country.  Banks 
of  deposit  and  exchange  are  a  necessary  part  of  the  great  commercial 
machinery  of  the  times,  but  banks  of  issue  are  not  necessary.  The  gov- 
ernment is  charged  with  the  execution  of  the  power  to  coin  money  and 
regulate  the  value  thereof,  and  should  exercise  that  power  in  all  its  full- 
ness and  not  delegate  any  constituent  part  of  it  to  corporations. 

CENTRALIZATION. 

There  is  a  growing  disposition  in  politics  to  look  with  indulgence 
upon  an  expansion  of  Federal  power,  though  such  expansion  correspond- 
ingly subtracts  from  the  constitutional  dignity  of  the  State.  This  dispo- 
sition is  sometimes  expressed  in  the  statement  that  the  nation  should  be 
spelled  with  a  big  "  N."  If  this  expression  is  intended  to  indicate  in- 
creasing reverence  for  the  Federal  Government,  the  "  N  "  cannot  be  too 
large.  If,  however,  it  signifies  that  the  Federal  Government  is  of  greater 
constitutional  importance  than  the  States,  and  should  be  made  more 
powerful  by  construction  and  the  States  less  so,  there  is  no  Constitu- 
tional support  for  this  disposition.  It  is  at  war  with  our  political  phi- 
losophy. If  the  "N?"  which  denotes  the  Federal  Government,  is  to 
grow  in  size,  so  ought  the  "  S,"  also,  which  represents  the  States. 
There  is  no  constitutional  warrant  for  changing  the  relation  between  the 
different  hemispheres  of  State  and  Federal  power  as  marked  off  and  de- 
fined in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  There  have  been,  under 
other  systems  of  government,  methods  of  local  administration.  This 
Government  is  the  first,  however,  to  establish  independent  and  sovereign 
local  governments,  wherein  supreme,  legislative,  executive  and  judicial 
power  over  domestic  affairs  is  established.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  has  created  an  indestructible  Union  of  indestructible  States,  as 
has  been  so  well  and  so  frequently  declared  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States.  It  is  held  by  that  great  tribunal  that  while  the  States 
might  survive  the  Union,  the  Union  could  not  survive  the  States,  be- 
cause the  United  States  Government  was  a  government  of  united,  inde- 
pendent and  sovereign  States.  Legislation  in  Congress,  therefore, 
which  abridges  or  impairs  in  the  slightest  the  local  and  domestic  inde- 
pendence of  the  States,  is  legislation  unjustified  by  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  Spates  and,  indeed,  prohibited  by  it. 

The  official  class,  holding  offices  under  the  Federal  Government,  are 
but  representatives  of  the  people  of  the  several  States.  They  cannot,  in 
their  representative  capacity  assume  wisdom  greater  than  is  possessed  by 


—  16—     \ 

those  who  elect  them  as  representatives.  Hence  there  is  no  legal  or  real 
superiority  iu  the  Federal  Government  or  its  officers  -which  endows  it  or 
them  with  constitutional  power  of  criticism,  or  of  censorship  of  what  the 
States  may  do.  If  there  be  a  difference  between  the  dignity  of  reserved 
power  and  power  granted,  that  difference  is  in  favor  of  power  reserved. 
The  same  people  who  granted  power  to  the  Federal  Government  reserved 
certain  other  power  to  themselves,  feeling  that  they  could  use  the  power 
not  granted  more  wisely  and  more  advantageously  themselves.  That  was 
the  reason  for  reserving  it.  The  source  from  which  power  springs  is 
higher  in  law  than  the  instruments  to  which  power  is  granted,  and  hence 
all  the  currents  of  presumption  run  in  favor  of  the  superiority  of  the 
people  and  of  the  power  reserved  by  them.  It  is  illogical,  unreasonable 
and  unconstitutional  to  hold  that  power  granted  to  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment can  be  legally  used  to  degrade  the  people  of  the  State,  or  of  any 
number  of  States.  The  political  forces  of  this  country,  always  manifest- 
ing themselves  along  the  line  of  centralization,  have  constructed  and 
passed  through  the  House  of  Representatives  at  Washington  what  is 
properly  known  as  the  Force  Bill.  This  measure  is  in  the  alleged  interest 
of  pure  elections.  It  rests  upon  the  assumption  that  supervisors, 
selected  by  the  Federal  Courts,  when  appealed  to  to  do  so  by  a  few  citi- 
zens of  the  districts  wherein  the  court  holds  its  sessions,  will  be  then  and 
there  inociilated  with  a  loftier  sense  of  duty  and  investigate  with  deeper 
conscientiousness  than  officers  of  elections,  chosen  by  the  ordinary 
methods  established  by  the  people  of  the  State,  possess.  This  bill  rests 
upon  a  distrust  of  the  people.  It  denies  capacity  in  them  to  govern 
themselves.  It  repeals  the  first  principle  of  American  Democracy.  It 
proclaims  to  the  world  that  fifty  persons  petitioning  the  Federal  Court 
to  appoint  supervisors,  together  with  the  Federal  Judge,  make  up  a  tri- 
bunal surpassing  in  honor  and  devotion  to  popular  government  the 
people  of  the  State  acting  through  their  legislature,  courts  and 
governor.  Certificates  of  election  of  members  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, under  this  bill,  are  to  be  given  by  the  supervisors  appointed 
by  the  Federal  Court,  and  not  by  the  Governor  of  the  State,  as  hereto- 
fore. These  supervisors  are  but  temporary.  They  have  no  permanent 
judicial  dignity  or  character  to  maintain.  They  perform  one  official 
function  only  and  expire.  A  Governor  of  a  State  is  a  man  of  known 
honor  and  distinction.  He  has  his  personal  character  and  the  honor  of  the 
State  in  keeping.  Judged  by  all  the  standards  which  prevail  in  this  life, 
he  is  a  safer  trustee  of  power  than  an  itinerant  selected  for  a  tempor- 
ary partisan  purpose.  The  direct  effect  of  this  measure,  therefore,  is  to 
degrade  the  State,  its  officers  and  its  respective  departments  of  govern- 
ment before  the  world,  and  in  the  eyes  of  its  own  people.  By  this  meas- 
ure its  honor  is  clouded,  its  integrity  doubted  and  its  fairness  denied. 
No  emergency  demands  the  enactment  of  this  law  other  than  the  impend- 
ing decline  of  the  Republican  party.  For  100  years  federal  elections 
have  been  held  and  decided  under  the  operation  of  the  election  machin- 
ery of  the  respective  States.  During  that  period  the  government  has 


—  17  — 

passed  through  all  the  dangers  of  the  foreign  and  civil  war,  yet  notwith- 
standing these  trials  the  American  people  have  displayed  to  the 
world  the  highest  genius  for  self  government.  Mr.  Reed  says  in 
support  of  the  proposition  to  take  the  federal  election  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  States,  that  the  Republican  party  has  a 
right  to  its  own  ignorance;  that  the  ignorant  vote  of  the  South  is 
Republican.  He  declares  that  Democracy  has  its  ignorance  in  the  North, 
and  that  his  party  should  have  its  Southern  ignorance  also.  The  design 
of  the  Force  Bill,  under  this  analysis  of  the  situation,  is  to  marshal  the 
stupor  and  ignorance  of  a  great  section  of  the  country  into  one  party, 
and  thereby  perpetuate  its  hold  upon  public  offices.  There  was  a  time 
when  Republicans  claimed  power  by  virtue  of  superior  learning,  tran- 
scendent moral  excellence  and  ideal  refinement.  The  people  have  fre- 
quently been  told  that  the  Republican  party  was  originally  composed  of 
a  membership  brought  together  by  a  divine,  but  invisible  sele  :tive  process, 
wyhereby  the  intelligence,  moral  and  spiritual  forces  of  the  nation,  were 
manifested  in  Republicanism.  But  it  ha&  now  come  about  that  Repub- 
licanism, once  so  irridescent,  so  imbued  with  knowledge,  is  decimated 
and  falling  into  langour  and  decay ;  that  its  only  hope  is  in  the  solidified  ig- 
norance of  the  South.  The  great  North,  the  theater  of  its  early  splendor, 
is  turning  pensively  away  from  it,  and  unless  its  decline  can  be  arrested 
by  the  enlistment  of  Southern  ignorance  its  downfall  is  assured.  The 
Democratic  party  is  not  wholly  free  from  ignorance.  It  does  not  claim  to 
be.  It  has  in  its  membership  many  of  the  rugged  elements  of  the  country. 
It  can  truthfully  say  of  itself,  however,  that  at  no  time  or  place,  nor 
under  any  circumstances,  has  it  advocated  the  passage  of  a  law  of  doubt- 
ful constitutional  propriety,  designed  to  solidify  the  ignorance  of  a  sec- 
tion of  the  country  and  march  it  in  a  body  into  its  own  ranks.  It  has 
never  been  a  part  of  its  policy  to  reduce  the  Federal  judiciary  to  a  partisan 
instrumentality,  nor  by  special  laws  to  employ  it  as  a  special  political 
force. 

RACE  DIVISION. 

The  political  division  of  the  whites  and  blacks  in  this  country  into 
hostile  bodies,  is  appalling.  Violence  in  elections  resulting  from  such 
division  is  a  disgrace  to  this  country.  The  sound  of  the  shot-gun  in 
American  politics  breaks  across  the  land  like  the  knell  of  departing  lib- 
erty. It  is  a  pertinent  inquiry  to  make,  whether  the  white  and  black 
races  can  live  together  in  peace  upon  this  Continent  under  the  Constitu- 
tion which  we  possess.  If  there  is  no  natural  political  iucompatability 
between  them,  the  legislation  of  the  country  ought  to  be  consistent  with 
the  fact.  If  nature  has  divided  them  into  hostile  bodies,  such  natural 
division  cannot  be  repealed  by  an  act  of  Congress.  The  Democratic 
party  assumes  that  there  is  no  natural  race  hostility,  and  that  both  races 
can  thrive  under  laws  bearing  equally  upon  both.  It  can  be  shown  that 
legislation  of  the  Federal  Government,  since  the  war,  has  produced  the 
irritation  which  is  manifested  between  the  two  races  in  the  South,  It 


—  18  — 

will  be  seen  ou  an  analysis  of  this  legislation,  that  the  disquiet  prevailing 
in  that  region  between  the  races,  is  the  direct  offspring  of  unwise  and  uu- 
cuiistitutional  legislation.  Enactments  have  been  passed  under  which 
discord  has  been  engendered,  which  it  is  now  difficult  to  subdue.  These 
enactments  sowed  the  wind,  and  as  a  result  the  whirl-wind  has  been  har- 
vested, statesmanship  employs  itself  In  softening  and  reducing  prejudices 
among  the  people,  and  not  in  stimulating  them. 

When  reconstruction  had  been  accomplished  the  Republican  party 
feared  a  decline  in  its  ascendancy  unless  it  could  secure  for  itself  for  all 
time  the  colored  vote.  At  that  time  the  races,  as  stated  by  Senator 
Ingalls  in  his  late  speech  in  the  Senate,  were  living  in  harmony.  There 
was  no  existing  reason  why  that  harmony  should  not  continue.  Both 
races  lived  under  laws  which  applied  to  both  alike.  Had  the  races  co- 
operated in  maintaining  the  laws  free  from  outside  interference,  there  is 
no  evidence  that  they  would  have  divided  on  the  line  of  race.  It  is  said 
also  by  Senator  Ingalls,  in  the  same  speech  above  mentioned,  that  if  the 
colored  men  would  now  vote  the  Democratic  ticket  there  would  be  no 
race  conflict  in  this  country.  This  proposition  is  true.  The  races  have 
been  arrayed  against  each  other  by  partisan  and  unconstitutional  legis- 
lation, enacted  by  the  Republican  party  to  secure  the  vote  of  the  negro. 
The  races  being  in  harmony  before  this  legislation  was  enacted,  and  it 
being  now  admitted  that  harmony  would  still  prevail  if  the  negro  were  a 
Democrat,  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  the  influences  which  have  oper- 
ated upon  him  to  separate  him  from  the  Democrats  are  the  cause  of  race 
dissension.  It  is  believed  that  the  legislative  and  judicial  history  of  the 
country  since  the  war  verify  this  conclusion.  If  to  vote  the  Democratic 
ticket  by  the  negro  would  extinguish  race  irritation,  as  is  stated  by 
Senator  Ingalls,  then  the  present  differences  between  the  races  is  politi- 
cal only,  for  they  would  remain  distinct  as  races  after  the  negro  became  a 
Democrat.  The  Republican  party  began  its  political  operations  upon  the 
colored  people  as  a  class,  to  divide  them  from  the  white  Democrats  of 
the  Soutl1  in  1870,  and  continued  this  effort  from  that  time  down  to  the 
election  of  President  Cleveland. 

In  1870  the  Republican  party,  then  being  in  supreme  control  of  the 
Federal  Government,  assumed,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
Government,  that  Congress  possessed  jurisdiction  over  the  election  ma- 
chinery of  the  several  States  To  carry  out  this  assumption  Congress 
enacted  that  no  State  election  should  be  tiual  until  federal  officers  so  de- 
clared. This  legislation  attempted  to  transfer  to  the  Federal  Government 
tinal  decisions  in  cases  of  State  elections  for  State  officers.  This  statute 
was  ostensibly  enacted  for  the  benefit  and  protection  of  the  colored  voters 
of  the  South.  It  had  a  double  effect  on  the  negroes.  It  operated  to 
degrade  the  State  in  their  opinion  and  to  convince  them  that  the  State 
could  not  be  relied  upon  to  do  them  justice,  and  that  their  only  hope  was 
in  the  Federal  Government,  administered  by  the  Republican  party.  Being 
thus  honestly  impressed,  they  became  solidly  Republican  and  contemptuous 
of  the  State  in  which  they  lived.  The  law  disclosed  to  the  whites  of  the 


—  19  — 

South  the  fact  that  the  negro  was  being  used  as  a  means  of  dismantling 
the  State  and  the  substitution  of  Federal  authority  in  place  of  State  au- 
thority, under  circumstances  not  justified  by  the  Constitution,  as  they 
understood  it.  '  Hence,  the  white  race,  moved  by  devotion  to  Constitu- 
tional government,  opposed  this  legislation.  Their  irritation  was  excited 
against  the  blacks  because  it  appeared  to  the  whites  that  the  blacks  were 
being  used  by  the  Republican  party  to  destroy  local  Constitutional  gov- 
ernment in  the  South.  Under  this  so-called  legislation  prosecutions 
arose  and  were  continued  throughout  the  entire  South.  For  a  period  of 
more  than  five  years  great  tumult  and  industrial  paralysis  prevailed,  at 
the  end  of  which  period  the  law  was  declared  unconstitutional.  The 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  composed  of  judges  appointed  ex- 
clusively by  Eepublican  presidents,  held  that  "The  statute  contemplated 
a  most  important  change  in  the  election  laws.  Previous  to  its  adoption 
the  States,  as  a  general  rule,  regulated  in  their  own  way  all  the  details 
of  the  election.  They  prescribed  the  qualifications  of  voters  and  the 
manner  in  which  those  offering  to  vote  at  an  election  should  make  known 
their  qualifications  to  the  officers  in  charge.  This  act  interfered  with 
this  practice  and  prescribed  rules  not  approved  by  the  laws  of  the  States." 
The  court  concluded  that  the  enactment  was  without  constitutional  sup- 
port and  therefore  void. 

Later  on  the  Republican  party,  wishing  still  to  hold  the  negro  vote, 
attempted  to  extend  the  jurisdiction  of  Federal  courts  in  cases  affecting 
the  colored  man  to  acts  which  had  theretofore  been  exclusively  within 
State  jurisdiction.  This  later  enactment  was  presented  to  the  colored 
people  of  the  South  as  a  new  pretence  on  the  part  of  the  Republican 
party  that  they  alone  were  the  friends  of  the  negro,  and  that  the  colored 
man  must  look  to  that  party  and  the  Federal  Government  for  protection. 
This  legislation  had  the  same  effect  to  array  the  races  against  each  other 
as  the  first,  and  to  add  to  the  distrust  in  the  mind  of  the  negro  of  State 
governments,  and  to  exasperate  him  against  the  whites,  who  universally 
opposed  the  statute.  The  whites  believed  the  pretended  law  a  violation 
of  their  rights  and  were  affected  by  it  as  they  had  been  by  the  previous 
enactment  and  contested  its  validity  at  everv  step.  During  the  agitation 
over  it  the  South  wras  most  bitterly  denounced  for  its  opposition  to  what 
the  Republicans  were  pleased  to  call  salutary  legislation  in  the  interest  of 
liberty.  This  statute  had  the  same  practical  history  as  the  first.  It 
filled  with  agitation  and  disquiet  a  period  of  five  years  before  it  reached 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  when  and  wThere  it  was  declared 
to  be  in  violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

This  was  followed  by  what  is  known  and  remembered  as  the  Civil 
Rights  Bill,  which,  in  terms,  invaded  State  jurisdiction.  It  put  local 
transportation  companies,  theaters,  hotels  and  public  institutions  under 
legislative  and  judicial  control  of  the  Federal  government.  It  would  be 
wearisome  to  repeat  the  incidents  of  bitterness  that  were  the  offspring  of 
this  legislation.  It  occupied  the  same  time  in  reaching  a  final  disposition 
as  the  other  enactments  had  respectively.  It  operated  in  the  same  way 


—  20  — 

upon  the  blacks  and  upon  the  whites,  keeping  them  divided,  and  added  to 
the  bitterness  theretofore  prevailing  between  them.  When  it  reached  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  it  shared  the  same  fate  as  the  others, 
the  court  declaring  that  if  this  legislation  could  be  upheld,  it  would 
operate  to  subvert  State  authority  utterly. 

These  enactments  were  sanctioned  by  the  Republican  press  and  the 
most  eminent  Republicans  in  the  United  States.  They  were  approved  by 
Republican  executives.  All  of  them  were  declared  to  be  revolutionary 
and  void  by  a  Republican  Supreme  Court.  If,  under  great  partisian 
pressure,  the  Court  had  sustained  them,  the  government  to-day  would  be 
utterly  changed  in  character  from  what  it  originally  was,  and  local  self- 
government  throughout  the  Union  extinguished. 

The  present  Force  Bill  is  a  continuation  of  the  policy  expressed  in 
the  enactments  before  alluded  to.  Its  effect  is  to  increase  the  inflamma- 
tion already  existing  between  the  races,  and  for  this  reason,  if  no  other, 
it  is  unwise.  There  cannot  be  built  up  in  this  country  two  systems  of 
jurisprudence.  One  for  the  whites  and  one  for  the  blacks.  There  is  no 
demand  for  the  Force  Bill  in  the  interest  of  the  white  people.  If  separate 
election  laws  must  be  enacted  for  the  colored  man,  and  separate  courts 
established  for  him,  and  different  supervision  placed  over  him  from  that 
to  which  the  white  man  is  subjected,  as  the  races  increase  in  number  two 
governments  will  naturally  develop  along  this  line  of  procedure  and  the 
unity  of  the  present  government  will  be  destroyed.  Rather  than  go  to  this 
extremity  it  would  be  better  for  the  Republican  party  to  release  its  political 
title  to  the  colored  vote  and  allow  him  to  vote  the  Democratic  ticket, 
which  as  Senator  Ingalls  says,  will  bring  peace. 

The  history  of  this  country  is  a  succession  of  marvels.  For  one 
hundred  years  the  American  people  have  built  empires.  Beginning  their 
constitutional  career  with  three  million  inhabitants  they  have  attained 
sixty-five  millions.  Public  domain,  larger  than  all  Europe,  has  been 
added  to  the  territory  over  which  our  flag  first  floated.  This  vast  expanse 
of  virgin  country  has  been,  from  time  to  time,  formed  into  independent 
and  sovereign  States,  to  whose  respective  names  glitters  a  new  star  on 
the  folds  of  the  national  flag.  This  great  family  of  States,  this  splendid 
constitutional  Union  came  to  us  through  the  sleepless  processes  of 
hereditary.  These  institutions,  declaring  the  primacy  of  individual  liberty, 
embody  the  wise  jurisprudence  which  we  have,  and  a  fixed  and  definite 
scheme  of  municipal  government,  resting  upon  the  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned, has  been  invisibly  harvested  from  the  ripest  and  wisest  conclusions 
of  our  race.  As  a  people,  we  possess  advantages  bestowed  upon  us  by 
a  ires  of  human  culture.  If  it  be  true  that  good  government  is  the  pro- 
duct of  an  unseen  and  persistent  husbandry  of  man's  wisest  thought,  it 
follows  that  its  life  and  future  growth  must  be  promoted  and  nourished 
by  ever  increasing  intelligence  and  moral  force.  This  generation  cannot 
safely  rest  upon  the  achievements  of  previous  ones.  Nature  has  provided 
no  process  of  transmitting  intelligence  from  one  period  or  generation  to 


—  21  — 

another.  Men  inherit  quickened  and  strengthened  capacity  to  acquire 
knowledge,  but  do  not  inherit  knowledge  itself.  Each  generation 
must  learn  for  itself.  If  a  people  are  content  to  receive  from  their 
ancestors  a  great  inheritance  of  liberty  as  individuals  receive  princely 
pecuniary  estates,  and  enjoy  them  in  indolent  ease,*  they  will  lose 
their  capacity  to  preserve  such  inheritance.  Individuals  may  squander 
money  or  pass  a  life  of  sloth  without  permanent  injury  to  the 
State,  but  a  great  people  cannot  escape  injury  to  themselves  and 
their  institutions  resulting  from  the  inactivity  and  indifference  of  a 
single  generation.  It  has  been  most  wisely  stated  that  eternal  vigilance 
is  the  price  of  liberty.  Sound  principles  of  government  and  of  economy 
will  either  be  strengthened  or  enfeebled  by  the  thought  or  lack  of  it, 
bestowed  upon  them  by  each  generation  having  temporary  custody  thereof. 
Political  indolence  of  the  masses  is  a  mortal  sin.  It  is  the  sepulcher  in 
which  dead  institutions  are  buried.  Students  of  history  know  that 
Republics  heretofore  existing  owe  their  decay  to  the  suspension  of  the 
people's  interest  in  subjects  of  government.  As  is  stated  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  the  right  to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness comes  from  the  Creator.  They  are  endowments  of  the  Creator. 
The  State  is  built  to  secure  them.  Inasmuch  as  the  State  is  but  a  reflec- 
tion of  the  people  establishing  it,  and  possesses  neither  intelligence  or 
moral  sense  in  itself,  the  people  whose  liberty  is  affected  by  it  must  them- 
selves keep  up  the  measure  of  intelligence  and  moral  understanding 
adequate  to  its  preservation.  This  is  only  possible  by  obedience  to  the 
ordinances  of  nature.  Man's  physical  welfare  depends  upon  his  physical 
activity.  Consign  the  athlete  to  inactivity  and  physical  degeneracy  will 
appear.  Select  the  strongest  person  in  your  midst,  place  his  arms  in 
slings  and  there  retain  them  for  six  months,  and  decrepitude  will  succeed 
to  vigor.  Appoint  a  guardian  over  the  brightest  person  in  this  region, 
suspend  the  functions  of  his  will,  gratify  no  ambition  of  his,  concede 
nothing  to  his  desires  or  hopes,  and  time  alone  is  necessary  to 
produce  imbecility.  This  is  because  the  infinite  has  decreed  that  activity 
is  the  source  of  progress  and  the  means  of  continued  power,  and 
is  the  only  route  over  which  strength  and  growth,  mental  and  physical,  en- 
ters the  world.  Intelligence  cannot  be  borrowed  one  from  another.  Each 
mast  acquire  it  for  himself.  So  with  physical  strength.  What  is  true  of 
individuals  is  also  true  of  great  bodies  of  people.  If  a  few  men  are  per- 
mitted to  control  political  affairs,  and  the  great  masses  of  the  people 
become  indifferent  to  public  topics,  the  intelligence  of  the  masses,  under 
this  practice,  will  waste  away  and  the  foundation  of  the  State  sink  under 
it.  A  governing  class  will  supplant  a  government  of  the  people  by  an 
oligarchy.  Chief  Justice  Coleridge,  of  England,  recently  declared  that 
the  people  of  England  were  perplexed  in  their  public  affairs  because  of  a 
failure  to  cultivate  in  the  masses  the  power  of  sustained,  connected  and 
sequent  thought.  If  such  failure  results  in  the  arrest  of  progress  in 
England,  it  will  have  the  same  effect  here.  Our  ancestors  have  given  ex- 
pression to  the  most  perfect  form  of  government  known  to  history.  They 


—  22  — 

built  the  institutions  descended  to  us  upon  the  great  dogma  of  equality 
of  rights,  and  of  municipal  power  in  each.  This  perfect  declaration  of 
the  theory  of  government  is  not,  however,  sufficient  to  perpetuate  the 
liberties  of  the  people.  The  seat  of  power  is  not  in  the  perfect  definition 
thereof,  but  isin*kuowledge.  Knowledge  is  power.  Individuals  are  strong 
or  weak,  as  they  possess  knowledge.  So  are  communities  and  nations. 
Pure  Democracy  assumes  the  equal  legal  rights  of  all,  and  impresses  upon 
each  the  duty  to  acquire  knowledge,  to  the  preservation  of  that  equality. 
If  it  be  true  that  knowledge  is  the  seat  of  political  power  and  the  seat  of 
safety,  it  is  essential  that  knowledge  be  made  accessible.  To  this  end, 
free  political  libraries  ought  to  be  established  at  every  county  seat  in  this 
country.  This  could  be  done  at  nominal  expense.  Statistical  reports, 
debates  in  Congress  and  all  other  political  data  of  interest  could  be  as- 
sembled in  these  respective  libraries  at  the  mere  expense  of  printing. 
The  young  men  of  the  country  would  thereby  have  spread  before  them 
the  highest  means  of  enlightenment  furnished  by  government  machinery. 
We  are  but  in  the  dawn  of  our  career  as  a  people.  We  are  not  justi- 
fied in  pronouncing  ourselves  a  permanent  success.  We  have  only 
ascended  the  heights  of  great  opportunities.  The  question  confronting 
us  is,  have  we  the  genius  of  self-government.  In  the  exuberance  of  one 
century's  success  we  swell  with  self -adulation  and  look  with  complacent 
pity  upon  most  of  the  world  as  our  inferiors.  Yet  the  truth  of  history  is 
that  nations  have  preceded  us  whose  oratory  we  love  to  imitate,  whose 
poetry  illustrates  a  high  conception  of  the  infinite  and  the  existence  of  re- 
lined  sentiment,  and  reflects  all  that  is  pure  in  spirit  and  exalted  in  ambition ; 
whose  philosophy  contains  the  substance  of  all  that  the  world  now  knows. 
Hut  these  nations  sleep  the  sleep  of  death.  Their  oratory  and  philosophy 
hung  over  their  memory  like  intoxicating  fragrance,  but  the  theater 
from  which  they  ruled  the  then  known  world  is  defaced  with  the  ruins  of 
their  temples  of  learning  and  the  broken  columns  of  the  palaces  of  their 
kings.  They  have  filled  the  measure  of  history  declared  by  Byron, 
wherein  he  says : 

"  This  is  the  moral  of  all  human  tales.  'Tis  but  the  same  rehersal  of 
the  past.  First  freedom  and  then  glory.  When  that  fails,  wealth,  vice, 
corruption,  barbarism  at  last,  and  history  with  its  volumes  vast,  hath  but 
one  page." 

Impressed  with  what  has  befallen  other  nations,  we  look  out  upon 
the  future.  We  have  advantages  never  enjoyed  by  others.  We  inhabit 
a  virgin  continent,  possessing  a  superior  climate  and  containing  sources 
of  wealth  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  highest  civilization. 
It  is  within  the  possible  for  this  people  to  realize  the  highest  attainable 
prosperity  and  happiness  of  mankind.  No  ruins  of  despotic  governments 
exist  here  to  corrupt  the  growth  of  free  institutions.  We  occupy  prob- 
ably the  last  great  experimental  field  of  civil  government.  If  we  fail  on 
such  a  theater  as  this,  under  institutions  protecting  and  quickening  in 
every  man  the  free  use  of  his  faculties,  with  the  world's  great  store  of 


—  23  — 

knowledge  and  of  human  experience  to  aid  our  endeavor,  who  in  the 
future  will  succeed?  If  this  empire  of  thought  and  of  law  fall,  it  will  be 
because  mankind  is  incapable  of  a  higher  life  and  is  not  suited  to  the 
splendid  opportunities  spread  before  them. 

Thanking  this  audience  most  cordially  for  the  kind  and  considerate 
attention  shown  me,  I  will  close  by  invoking  for  this  splendid  community 
the  largest  measure  of  prosperity  and  happiness. 


ARGUMENT 

—OF— 

JEFFERSON  CHANDLER 

BEFORE   THE 

COMMITTEE  ON  POST-OFFICES  AND  POST-ROADS   OF  THE  SEN- 
ATE OF   THE   UNITED    STATES 

AGAINST 

PENDING   BILLS   TO   EXCLUDE    BUSINESS  COMMUNICATIONS  OF 

LAWFUL  STATE  CORPORATIONS  FROM  THE  UNITED  STATES 

MAILS,  AND  TO    ESTABLISH    BY    CONGRESS    A 

CENSORSHIP  OF  THE  PRESS. 


Mr.   Chairman  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Committee: 

The  first  proposition  to  which  I  desire  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Com  - 
mittee  of  the  Senate  is,  that  existing  laws  provides  adequate  punishment  for 
abuse  of  the  United  States  mails.  The  laws  as  they  now  exist  reach  the 
verge  of  constitutional  power  of  Congress  in  that  respect.  The  two  bills 
pending  before  the  Senate  Committee  enter  a  region  of  legislation  heretofore 
untrodden  by  Congress,  and  from  which  the  Post-office  Committes  and  the 
Judiciary  Committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives  have  turned  back. 
The  propositions  in  these  bills  assume 

First.  The  power  in  Congress  to  stop  the  circulation  of  the  press  with- 
out accusation,  notice,  hearing  or  evidence,  when  something  therein  strikes 
offensively  the  eye  of  the  Post-office  Department;  and 

Second.  That  Congress  may  direct  the  Post-office  Department  to  re- 
frain from  transporting  in  the  mails,  without  accusation,  hearing,  notice  or 
evidence,  communications  offered  for  transportation  in  the  mails  from  point 
to  point  in  any  State,  though  such  communications  offered  for  transportation 
conform  in  all  respects  to  the  regulations  made  by  Congress  effecting  pack- 
ages ordinarily  receivable,  and  though  such  communications  are  about  and 
concerning  the  business  of  a  corporation  created  by  the  State  in  which  such 
communications  originate  and  are  offered  for  transportation,  and  from  which 
corporation  the  State  derives  a  revenue. 

Each  of  these  propositions  is  revolutionary . 


The  propositions  above  stated  find  what  support  they  have  from  persons 
of  highly  moral  sensibility  made  restless  by  the  passage  through  the  mails 
of  communications  not  favored  by  them.  It  is  doubtless  the  duty  of  Con- 
gress to  do,  within  its  jurisdiction,  all  that  its  highest  wisdom  incites  it  to  for 
the  public  good.  If,  however,  we  are  to  measure  degrees  of  immorality  it 
may  with  confidence  be  asserted  that  no  immorality  equals  in  destructiveness 
to  society,  as  willful  violation  of  the  Constitution.  Moral  advancement  will 
cease  when  official  indifference  to  constitutional  obligations  begins ;  hence 
the  supreme  question  here  involved  is  not  one  of  sensibility,  but  of  constitu- 
tional stability. 

The  first  proposition  hereinbefore  stated  affects  the  freedom  of  the  press 
guaranteed  by  the  Constitution.  This  special  guarantee  of  freedom  includes, 
as  it  has  been  often  held  by  the  courts,  the  right  of  circulation.  This  guar- 
antee does  not  rest  on  any  special  tenderness  for  the  proprietors  or  owners 
of  news  publications.  Their  property  invested  is  no  more  sacred  under  the 
Constitution  than  other  property  invested. 

The  relation  of  the  press  to  the  public  constitutes  the  consideration  for 
the  guarantee.  The  press  is  an  institution  for  the  dissemination  of  knowl-^ 
edge  and  intelligence.  One  man  may  own  a  news  publication  and  a  million 
people  read  'it.  Those  who  subscribe  and  pay  for  it  have  not  only  a  property 
interest  in  it,  but  a  right  also  to  receive  from  it  the  information  and  intelli- 
gence which  it  conveys  to  them  on  public  subjects.  A  law,  therefore,  that 
will  permit  an  executive  officer  of  the  Government,  by  an  arbitrary  order 
made  in  seclusion,  to  discontinue  the  circulation  of  the  publication  to  which 
they  have  subscribed,  and  for  which  they  have  paid,  and  to  deprive  them  of 
the  benefit  which  they  have  a  right  to  derive  from  it,  without  notice  or  hear- 
ing, because  the  owner  of  the  paper  has  incorporated  into  it  an  advertise- 
ment offensive  to  the  Post-office  Department,  violates  the  right  of  the  prop- 
erty in  the  individual  subscribers  thereto,  and  suppresses  the  dissemination 
of  intelligence  which  the  Constitution  »herishes.  Persons  employed  in  the 
production  of  the  publication  as  skilled  laborers  or  otherwise  suffer  by  its 
arbitrary  suppression  though  innocent  of  the  act  causing  such  suppression. 
The  effect  of  the  Constitution,  therefore,  is  to  exclude  from  the  punishment  for 
the  publication  of  forbidden  matter  the  suppression  of  the  publication  itself. 
This  cannot  be  done  in  the  manner  provided  for  in  the  bill.  The  philosophy 
of  the  law  is  to  limit  punishment  in  such  cases  to  penalties  falling  upon  the 
individual  who  does  the  act  made  criminal. 

The  Constitution  says  the  liberty  of  the  press  shall  not  be  abridged. 
There  is  behind  the  Constitution,  in  our  jurisprudence,  no  definition  that  I 
can  find  of  what  constitutes  the  liberty  of  the  press.  But  there  was  in 
England  a  practice  tolerated  by  law,  of  authorizing  a  government  officer  to 
read  the  press,  and  to  determine  whether  there  was  in  such  printed  publica- 
tions anything  that,  in  the  opinion  of  that  officer,  was  improper  to  be  pub- 
lished, and  if  so,  he  might  suppress  the  circulation  of  the  paper  and  cast  it 
out  of  the  mail.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  had  that  practice  in 
view  at  least.  All  the  writers  on  Constitutional  law  say  that  a  censorship  of 


the  press,  which  had  been  tolerated  and  allowed,  must  have  been  in  the 
mind  of  the  people  when  this  provision  of  the  Constitution  was  enacted. 
Is  there  any  difference,  practically,  in  principle  between  that  practice  and 
this  bill  so  far  as  it  affects  papers  in  the  United  States  mail?  I  do  not  take 
the  ground  that  Congress  cannot  forbid  impure  advertisements  in  this  dis- 
trict by  virtue  of  its  authority  to  establish  local  government  for  the  district. 
That  power  is  distinct  from  the  power  to  regulate  the  mails.  Casting  a 
paper  out  of  the  mails,  under  the  provisions  of  this  bill,  is  done  on  the 
assumed  power  of  the  Government  to  re-establish  a  censorship  of  the  press. 
If  the  press  is  to  be  cast  out  of  the  mails,  some  officer  must  do  it.  He 
reads  the  paper,  finds  it  objectionable  in  his  opinion,  and  throws  it  out.  If 
a  paper  can  be  suppressed  after  it  is  published,  why  not  have  some  system 
of  observation  and  inspection  of  what  is  going  into  it,  before  it  is  pub- 
lished ?  Why  not  require  publishers  to  submit  all  manuscript  to  a  Govern- 
ment officer  in  advance? 

In  my  judgment  this  bill  violates  the  constitutional  provision  which  for- 
bids a  censorship  of  the  press.  The  Constitution  does  not  permit  Congress 
to  pass  a  law  to  suppress  or  stop  the  circulation  of  newspapers. 

The  power  to  punish  individuals  for  vicious  publications,  is  in  the 
States,  and  not  in  the  Federal  Government.  Such  punishment  must  be 
confined  to  parties  actually  doing  the  forbidden  act,  and  cannot  be  extended 
to  those  innocently  engaged  in,  and  making  their  livelihood  out  of  the  publi- 
cation of  the  paper  itself.  This  bill  contemplates  that  some  officer  shall 
exclude  newspapers  from  the  mail,  if  such  publication.0  appear  to  him  to  be 
such  as  are  by  this  bill  declared  non-mailable.  He  will  do  this,  if  this  bill 
pass  and  is  enforced,  upon  his  own  inspection  of  the  paper.  He  hears  no 
evidence,  has  no  judicial  power  or  modes  of  procedure  to  guide  him  to  a 
correct  conclusion.  There  is  no  appeal  from  him.  No  right  to  have  the  real 
character  of  the  publication  judicially  interpreted  or  construed;  nor  is  the 
punishment  for  the  publication  limited  to  the  parties  actually  doing  the 
prohibited  act.  What  is  this  but  the  re-establishment  of  a  censorship  of  the 
press.  Each  postmaster  throughout  the  Union  is  made,  by  this  bill,  a  distinct 
censor.  He  is  judge,  witness  and  executioner,  all  in  one,  holding  the  liberty 
of  the  press  absolutely  in  his  own  hands. 

An  independent  press  is  protected  by  the  American  Constitution.  The 
power  to  suppress  it  is  abolished.  The  power  to  punish  individuals,  after  a 
judicial  trial,  for  an  abuse  of  the  freedom  of  the  press,  is  distinct  from  the 
power  to  stop  the  circulation  of  a  newspaper.  The  freedom  to  publish 
includes  the  freedom  to  circulate.  The  press  in  this  country  gives  the  initial 
impulse  to  progress.  It  quickens  public  thought,  stimulates  morality;  is 
the  vigilant  and  sleepless  observer  of  encroaching  evil,  and  when  wisely  con- 
ducted the  reliance  of  a  free  people.  This  being  the  estimate  of  its  value  by 
our  civilization,  a  constitutional  inhibition  in  its  favor  rests  upon  all  depart- 
ments of  Government.  Never,  in  the  history  of  Congress,  until  now,  has  it 
been  proposed  to  place  the  circulation  of  the  press  in  official  hands  and  sub- 
ject its  contents  to  Governmental  censure. 

This  project  is  un-American,  subversive  of  law,  and  offensive  to  liberty. 


CAN  THE  POST-OFFICE  DEPARTMENT  BE  AUTHORIZED  TO  DENY 
THE  MAILS  TO  A  STATE  CORPORATION? 

The  second  subject  involved  in  the  bills  now  pending,  is  the  assumed 
power  in  Congress  to  exclude  from  the  United  States  mails  operating  within 
the  boundaries  of  a  State,  the  business  communications  of  a  corporation 
created  by  such  State,  offered  for  transportation  in  the  State,  to  be  conveyed 
to  other  points  in  the  same  State.  This  question  cannot  be  confounded  with 
the  right  in  the  United  States  to  exclude  from  the  mails  obscene  communi- 
cations. Whether  the  Government  can  do  the  latter  or  not,  is  not  now  up  for 
inquiry.  The  communications  in  whose  favor  this  argument  is  made,  are 
business  communications  of  a  lawful  corporation,  created  by  a  State.  Said 
corporation  is  a  municipal  constituent  of  the  State  itself.  The  State  derives 
a  part  of  its  revenue  from  it.  Hence,  if  the  United  States  has  power  to 
reject  the  business  communications  of  such  a  corporation,  declared  by  the 
highest  court  in  the  State  to  be  lawful,  and  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  as  well,  such  power  puts  the  Federal  Government  in  direct  hos- 
tility to  the  State  Government,  which  is  impossible  under  a  correct  interpre- 
tation of  the  system  under  which  we  live.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  presents  the  sovereign  power  of  one  government  in  two  divisions. 
There  are  not  strictly  two  governments,  Federal  and  State,  but  one  govern- 
ment with  sovereign  power,  distributed  into  Federal  and  State  jurisdiction. 
The  Constitution  contains  enumerated  grants  of  power  to  the  Federal 
Government.  It  contains  also  a  preservation  of  sovereign  power  different 
from  the  sovereign  power  conferred  upon  the  Federal  Government  to  State 
Governments.  State  Governments,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  and  under  uniform  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court,  are  as  sovereign 
within  their  sphere  of  domestic  government,  as  is  the  United  States  in  the 
sphere  of  granted  power  to  it.  An  institution  created  by  sovereign 
power  in  either  one  of  the  divisions  of  sovereignty  above  mentioned,  com- 
mands the  protection  of  the  other  division.  The  whole  system  of  government 
is  entirely  sympathetic  and  harmonious  throughout  its  extent,  and  it  is 
legally  impossible  for  one  division  of  power,  under  the  same  constitution,  to 
be  operated  in  hostility  to  institutions  which  spring  from  the  other  division 
of  power. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  as  much  committed  to  the  preser- 
vation of  power  in  the  States,  which  that  Constitution  declares  in  express 
terms  is  reserved  to  the  States,  as  it  is  in  upholding  granted  power  to  the 
Federal  Government.  The  institution  whose  rights  are  here  under  question, 
being  legally  created,  includes  in  its  very  Constitution  the  right  to  preserva- 
tion after  it  is  created  1  he  right  to  create,  includes  the  right  to  preserve, 
when  created.  If  the  State  has  the  power  to  create  an  institution  and  lives 
in  a  system  of  government  where  part  of  the  sovereign  powers  of  the  gov- 
ernment have  been  conferred  upon  certain  agencies  other  than  the  State, 
those  other  agencies  operating  in  legal  sympathy  with  the  States  must,  in  the 


very  nature  of  their  logical  arid  legal  relation  to  the  State,  preserve  that 
which  the  State  has  legally  brought  into  existence. 

That  was  settled  long  ago.  When  the  United  States  created  the  first 
National  bank,  Maryland  did  not  like  it.  Maryland  said,  we  will  tax  it,  and 
in  'that  great  controversy  came  an  adjudication,  which  has  stood  as  a  pillar 
of  light  to  the  tribunals  of  this  country  ever  since.  This  was  said  by  the  Su- 
preme Court:  "The  whole  case  depends  on  this  proposition.  The  power  to 
create  implies  the  power  to  preserve." 

McCullough  v.  Maryland,  4th  Wheaton,  426. 

A  power  to  create  implies  a  power  to  preserve.  Where  does  the  power  to 
preserve  become  separated  from  the  power  to  create?  Louisiana  has  the 
power  to  create,  which  is  power  to  guarantee  it  Federal  favor  and  Federal 
protection.  If  Louisiana  has  the  power  to  create  and  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment is  acting  in  concert  with  Louisiana  in  carrying  out  and  promoting  her 
domestic  welfare,  then  the  poAver  to  preserve  is  in  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment, and  the  duty  to  preserve  is  there  also. 

The  counter  proposition  is :  That  power  to  destroy,  if  wielded  by  a  dif- 
ferent hand,  is  hostile  to,  and  incompatible  with,  the  power  to  create  and 
preserve. 

The  Federal  Government  is  committed,  by  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  to  an  affectionate  solicitude  for  the  preservation  of  all  lawful 
institutions,  of  all  the  States.  It  cannot  be  estranged  from  the  lawful 
institutions  of  the  States.  Congress  has  no  power  to  create  them, 
neither  can  it  burden  or  impair  them.  It  can,  and  must,  protect  them.  Thus 
State  independence,  and  the  right  of  local  self-government  is  nourished  by 
the  Federal  system.  Personal  liberty,  and  general  enlightenment  and  indepen- 
dence in  local  matters  is  quickened  and  strengthened  in  the  seats  of  local 
power,  and  the  whole  system  is  made  unassailably  strong. 

A  power  to  destroy  is  hostile  to,  and  inconsistent  with  the  power  to  cre- 
ate. If  there  be  legal  power  to  create,  protection  to  the  thing  created  fol- 
lows the  power  of  creation  and  is  a  part  of  it.  It  commands  in  law  protec- 
tion, wherever  it  goes,  until  it  meets  with  some  counter  independent  power 
having  equal  jurisdiction.  But  the  Federal  Government  has  no  such  counter 
power  to  Louisiana  as  Mississippi  bears  to  Louisiana.  When  Louisiana  acts  ' 
legally  within  her  dominions  and  speaks  into  life  an  institution,  the  Federal 
Government  takes  it  up  affectionately,  not  grudgingly — not  with  a  frown  and 
display  of  displeasure — but  with  an  affection  which  shelters  it  under  the 
Federal  Government.  If  It  were  a  railroad  corporation  no  one  would  come 
here  and  insist  to  this  committee  that  it  should  be  excluded  from  the  mails. 
I  do  not  stand  upon  the  question  whether  it  is  a  good  or  bad  institution  in 
the  abstract.  It  is  enough  to  know  that  it  is  lawful ;  and  being  lawful  it  is  not 
open  to  assault  by  the  very  government  that  gives  it  lawful  character. 

The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  say 

"The  result  is  that  the  States  have  no  power,  by  taxation  or  otherwise, 
to  retard,  impede,  burden,  or  in  any  manner  control  the  operations  of  the 
constitutional  laws  enacted  by  Congress  to  carry  into  execution  the  powers 


vested  in  the  general  government.  This  is,  we  think,  the  unavoidable  con- 
sequence of  that  supremacy  which  the  constitution  has  declared." 

Is  not  the  converse  of  that  proposition  true  that  the  United  States  can- 
not burden,  impair,  or  in  the  slightest  degree  control  any  exclusive  power 
that  the  States  have?  Does  it  not  follow  that  if  the  States  are  equally 
independent  of  Congress  in  constitutional  contemplation,  if  they  are  equally 
sovereign  with  the  United  States  in  the  matters  which  are  confided  exclu- 
sively to  them,  that  the  United  States  cannot  retard,  impair,  or  in  any  man- 
ner control  the  institution  which  the  States  create  out  Of  their  reserved 
power,  which  the  Constitution  guarantees  to  them? 

One  word  more.     I  allude  again  to  this  case: 

"We  are  relieved,  as  we  ought  to  be,  from  clashing  sovereignty;  from  in- 
terfering powers ;  from  a  repugnancy  between  a  right  in  one  government  to 
pull  down  what  there  is  an  acknowledged  right  in  another  to  build  up ;  from 
the  incompatibility  of  a  right  in  one  government  to  destroy  what  there  is  a 
right  in  another  to  preserve.  We  are  not  driven  to  the  perplexing  inquiry, 
so  unfit  for  a  judicial  department,  what  degree  of  taxation  is  the  legitimate 
use,  and  what  degree  may  amount  to  the  abuse  of  the  power.  The  attempt 
to  use  it  on  the  means  employed  by  the  government  of  the  Union,  in  pur- 
suance of  the  constitution,  is'itself  an  abuse,  because  it  is  the  usurpation  of 
a  power  which  the  people  of  a  single  State  cannot  give.  (p.  430.)  The  court 
has  bestowed  on  this  subject  its  most  deliberate  consideration." 

If  Congress  has  power  to  exterminate  that  which  Louisiana  has  the  power 
to  create,  then  I  need  not  argue  this  question.  If  not,  I  am  right. 

The  commerce  of  this  country  is  divided  into  domestic  and  inter-state 
commerce.  The  adoption  into  our  system  of  government  of  the  mail  system 
for  the  transmission  of  intelligence,  was  an  adoption  of  it  for  the  benefit  of 
both  classes  of  commerce  recognized  by  the  constitution,  of  which  the 
power  to  establish  post-oftices  and  post-roads  is  a  part.  By  the  constitutional 
adoption  of  a  system  of  transmitting  intelligence,  it  is  by  implication 
declared  that. that  system  is  necessary  to  promote  the  commerce  which  is 
by  the  same  Constitution  recognized  as  lawful.  The  States  made  an  exclu- 
sive grant  to  Congress  of  the  power  to  establish  post-ofiices  and  post-roads. 
The  Constitution,  in  making  this  grant,  reserved  to  the  States  the  exclusive 
power  to  manage  their  own  domestic  concerns  in  their  own  way.  It  is  as 
essential  to  the  prosperity  of  domestic  commerce  that  a  system  of  trans- 
mission of  intelligence  in  respect  of  the  same  be  opened  to  persons 
engaged  in  that  commerce,  as  it  is  that  the  system  be  available  to  those 
engaged  in  inter-state  commerce.  The  United  States,  therefore,  took  the 
granted  power  to  establish  post-offices  and  post-roads,  in  trust  for  the 
States,  and  for  all  persons  engaged  in  lawful  business  in  the  States,  as  well 
as  for  the  convenience  of  those  engaged  in  inter-state  or  international 
commerce. 

Louisiana  has  not  concurrent  power  with  the  Federal  Government  to 
institute  and  maintain  a  mail  system,  because  it  would  deplete  the  revenues 
of  the  Government,  and  it  would  throw  confusion  into  the  system  of  trans- 
mission of  intelligence,  and  therefore  the  United  States  Government  has  the 
exclusive  power  to  transport  the  United  States  mails  in  the  State  of  Louisi- 


aim.  Still,  in  transferring  to  the  United  States  Government  the  exclusive 
power  to  transport  the  mails,  the  Constitution. of  the  United  States  reserved 
to  Louisiana  the  right  to  carry  on  her  domestic  commerce  in  her  own  way. 
In  carrying  on  her  domestic  commerce  she  must  have  some  system  of  trans- 
porting intelligence,  or  of  the  transmission  of  intelligence.  All  the  States 
in  adopting  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  unite  in  the  declaration 
that  the  mail  system  was  the  system  adopted.  Now,  will  any  one  say  that 
when  the  Federal  Government  took  exclusive  power  from  the  hands  of 
Louisiana,  and  at  the  same  time  left  in  the  hands  of  Louisiana  the 
absolute  right  over  nine-tenths  of  all  those  matters  which  affect  her  pros- 
perity, that  Louisiana  contemplated  that  the  Federal  Government  should 
hold  the  mail  power  as  an  independent  power,  with  the  right  to  exclude 
Louisiana  and  nine-tenths  of  the  matters  of  government  over  which  she  had 
retained  jurisdiction,  and  which  involved  her  domestic  commerce,  from  the 
benefits  of  the  mail  system?  All  conferred  Federal  powers  are  held  in  trust 
for  the  people  of  the  United  States.  They  are  held  in  trust  for  the  States 
and  the  lawful  institutions  of  the  States.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  contemplates  the  formation  of  States  and  the  creation  by  them  of 
lawful  business  agencies.  States  were  formed  before  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment was  formed.  The  rights  of  citizens  to  life,  liberty  and  property  existed 
prior  to  and -are  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  This 
was  a  system  to  promote  the  general  welfare ;  not  the  general  welfare  as 
Congress  might  choose  to  interpret  it,  but  the  general  welfare  accomplished 
and  wrought  out  under  limitations  and  restraint  expressed  in  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  Congress  may  do  whatever  in  its  judgment  pro- 
motes the  general  welfare  of  the  United  States  so  long  as  it  keeps  within 
constitutional  limitations.  Beyond  that  the  general  welfare  has  no  judicial 
or  constitutional  existence  or  meaning  whatever.  If  the  United  States  can 
withdraw  the  privileges  of  the  mails  from  one  institution  of  Louisiana,  why 
not  withdraw  the  privileges  of  the  United  States  mails  from  every  other 
institution  of  Louisiana?  If  Louisiana  sets  up  a  lottery  company  by  which 
to  replenish  her  revenues,  and  thereby  make  such  company  a  constituent  in 
the  local  government  of  Louisiana,  can  the  Federal  Government  withdraw 
the  privileges  of  the  maiis  from  that  institution?  If  so,  may  the  Congress  not 
take  one  step  further  and  withdraw  the  whole  mail  system  from  Louisiana 
itself?  If  Louisiana  does  not  govern  herself  in  conformity  with  the  judgment 
of  Congress,  why  not  take  away  the  whole  mail  system?  Why  not  cease  to 
deliver  the  mails  to  a  State  that  does  not  conform  its  judgment  to  the  judg- 
ment of  Congress?  If  you  can  snatch  it  away  from  one  State,  then  you  can 
take  away  the  reserved  power  of  every  State  by  crippling  its  use,  and  leave 
the  States  in  a  condition  of  absolute  desertion  and  desolation.  I  say  the  ques- 
tion is  not  debatable  whether  it  may  exercise  this  power  as  it  sees  fit. 
The  Federal  Government  must  exercise  it  as  a  trustee. 

If  the  Federal  Government  holds  absolute  power,  then  is  sounded  the 
knell  of  Constitutional  Government  in  this  country.  It  is  as  much  the  duty 
of  the  Federal  Government  to  uphold  the  sovereignty  of  a  State  as  it  is  to 
uphold  its  own  sovereignty. 


8 

Congress,  it  is  stated,  has  power  to  declare  what  shall  and  what  shall 
not  be  transmitted  in  the  United  States  mail.  This  is  true  to  a  certain 
extent.  Congress  may  make  exclusive  regulations  concerning  the  size  and 
weight  of  packages  to  be  transmitted  in  the  mails,  and  the  charge  that  shall 
be  collectible  for  such  transportation,  but  Congress  has  no  power  to  say  that 
the  Chairman  of  this  Committee  shall  not,  after  a  certain  date,  receive  or 
transmit  communications  through  the  United  States  mails ;  neither  can  it 
lawfully  say  that  a  State  shall  not  receive  or  transmit  communications 
through  the  mails  while  it  permits  other  States  to  do  so.  This  would  be 
arbitrary  power  and  not  constitutional  Legislative  power.  Congress  can 
refuse  to  make  any  appropriation  for  the  mails,  but  this  would  be  revolution, 
not  a  constitutional  administration  of  the  power  to  establish  post-ortlces  and 
post-roads. 

The  very  essence  of  legislative  power  is  uniformity  in  the  operation  of 
laws  when  made.  For  instance,  the  Court  of  Appeals  of  the  State  of  New 
York  held  that  it  was  not  competent  for  the  Legislature  of  that  State  to 
make  an  act  of  an  individual  a  felony  in  one  county  only  in  the  State,  and  to 
make  the  same  act  a  misdemeanor  when  committed  in  other  counties  in  the 
State.  That  while  there  was  no  express  provision  of  the  Constitution  of 
New  York  which  forbade  such  legislation,  yet  it  was  in  the  very  nature  of 
legislation  itself  that  it  should  be  uniform  throughout  the  geographical  juris- 
diction over  which  the  Legislature  of  New  York  had  the  power  to  act.  Con- 
gress cannot,  therefore,  lawfully  make  provisions  for  carrying  the  mails  in 
the  North  and  at  the  same  time  decline  to  carry  the  mails  in  the  South. 
Arbitrary  power  is  reposed  in  no  government.  It  can  neither  be  conferred 
or  received. 

Hence  the  legislative  power,  to  be  consistent  with  a  constitutional  grant 
of  power,  must  be  uniform  and  equal  in  its  operations.  The  power  to  estab- 
lish post-offices  and  post-roads  was  deposited  with  the  Federal  Government, 
not  for  the  use  of  the  Federal  Government  alone,  and  not  as  a  part  of  the 
exercise  of  Federal  jurisdiction  alone,  but  for  the  benefit  of  all  the  people  of% 
the  United  States  engaged  in  lawful  business.  An  appropriation  for  carrying 
the  mails,  which  confines  mail  matter  to  communications  between  Federal 
ollircs  or  to  Federal  business,  and  to  communications  which  relate  to  inter- 
state and  international  commerce  alone,  would  be  oppressive  and  unconstitu- 
tional because  such  legislation  would  be  sectional,  special  and  therefore 
contradictory  to  the  grant  of  power  to  establish  post-offices  and  post-roads 
for  all  alike.  Such  power  includes  the;  right  to  establish  a  system  of  mails 
for  domestic  and  State  commerce,  and  where  an  exclusive  right  is  granted 
for  such  purpose  it  carries  with  the  right  a  duty  to  exercise  it  to  the  extent 
of  the  constitutional  demand  for  it.  Hence  the  statement  that  Congress  may 
determine  what  shall  go  into  the  mails  and  what  shall  not  go  into  the  mails 
must  be  accepted  with  these  qualifications. 
Judge  Field,  in  exparte  Jackson,  96  United  States,  said : 

"  The  difficulty  attending  the  subject  arises  not  from  the  want  of  power 
in  Congress  to  prescribe  regulations  as.  to  what  shall  constitute  mail  matter, 


but  from  the  necessity  of  enforcing  them  consistently  with  rights  reserved 
to  the  people  of  far  greater  importance  than  the  transportation  of  mail." 

The  reserved  power  of  the  States  cannot  be  broken  down  by  the  use  of 
power  to  regulate  the  mails. 

It  is  generally  asked,  during  the  discussion  of  this  question,  whether  the 
argument  extends  so  far  as  to  deny  power  in  the  Federal  Government  to  ex- 
clude from  the  mails  obscene  matter.  If  it  were  conceded,  for  argument, 
that  the  Federal  Government  might  exclude  obscene  matter  from  the  mails, 
that  would  not  impair  the  argument  that  it  cannot  exclude  matter  not  ob- 
scene. The  argument  here  presented  is  limited  to  the  support  of  the  right  of 
a  legal  business  corporation  to  have  access  to  the  United  States  mail.  In 
supporting  that  right,  the  question  whether  Congress  has  power  to  deal  with 
other  matters  as  it  may  see  fit  is,  it  seems  to  me,  not  pertinent. 

There  are  many  acts  which  are  technical  wrongs,  but  which  do  no  legal 
injury.  For  instance,  an  intruder  may  be  put  out  of  a  gentleman's  house 
without  legal  process,  and,  if  not  handled  too  roughly,  he  has  no  legal  com- 
plaint, because  he  had  no  legal  right  to  be  there.  Many  illustrations  of 
this  principle  could  be  given. 

Obscene  matter  has  no  legal  status  to  vindicate  itself  in  any  tribunal,  and 
hence  it  is  like  an  intruder.  It  may  be  put  out  of  the  way  by  anybody  and  no 
legal  redress  is  furnished  for  such  treatment ;  but  if  a  case  arose  where  it  was 
debatable  whether  certain  matter  was  obscene  or  not,  and  the  authority 
having  exclusive  and  final  jurisdiction  over  it  decided  that  it  was  not  ob- 
scene, the  question  of  obscenity  could  not  be  collaterally  raised  by  someone 
else  interested  in  giving  it  an  obscene  character.  The  Government  of  the 
United  States  has  no  power  through  its  Congress,  or  its  departments,  or  its 
courts,  to  question  collaterally  the  character  of  an  institution  which  springs 
from  the  reserved  power  of  the  State,  and  which  the  State  alone  has  power 
to  create.  The  institution  being  the  offspring  of  sovereign  legislative  power 
in  the  State,  there  remains  no  hostile  power  anywhere  else  under  a  harmoni- 
ous system  of  government  to  question  the  legal  character  of  such  institu- 
tions. It  cannot  be  lawful  and  unlawful  at  the  same  time  under  the  same 
system  of  government. 

In  Welton  v's.  State  of  Missouri,  91  U.  S.  281,  it  is  said  that: 

"The  power  of  the  State  to  exact  a  license  tax  of  any  amount  being  ad- 
mitted, no  authority  would  remain  in  the  United  States  or  in  this  court  to 
control  its  action,  however  unreasonable  or  oppressive." 

Doyle  vs.  Continental  Ins.  Co.,  94  U.  S.  541. 

"If  the  State  has  the  power  to  do  an  act,  its  intention  or  the  reason  by 
which  it  is  influenced  in  doing  it  cannot  be  inquired  into.  Thus,  the 
pleading  before  us  alleges  that  the  permission  of  the  Continental  Insurance 
Company  to  transact  its  business  in  Wisconsin,  is  about  to  be  revoked,  for 
the  reason  that  it  removed  the  case  of  Drake  from  the  State  to  the  Federal 
courts. 

"If  the  act  of  an  individual  is  within  the  terms  of  the  law,  whatever  may 
be  the  reason  which  governs  him,  or  whatever  may  be  the  result,  it  cannot 
be  impeached.  The  acts  of  a  State  are  subject  to  still  less  inquiry,  either  as 
to  the  act  itself  or  as  the  reason  for  it.  The  State  of  Wisconsin,  except  so 


10 

far  as  its  connection  with  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States  al- 
ters its  position,  is  a  sovereign  State,  possessing  all  the  powers  of  the  most 
absolute  government  of  the  world. 

"The  argument  that  the  revocation  in  question  is  made  for  an  unconstitu- 
tional reason  cannot  be  sustained.  The  suggestion  confounds  an  act  with  an 
emotion  or  a  mental  proceeding,  which  is  not  the  subject  of  inquiry  in  de- 
termining the  validity  of  a  statute.  An  unconstitutional  reason  or  intention 
is  an  impracticable  suggestion,  which  cannot  be  applied  to  the  affairs  of  life. 

"If  the  act  done  by  the  State  is  legal,  is  not  in  violation  of  the  Constitu- 
tion or  laws  of  the  United  States,  it  is  quite  out  of  the  power  of  any  court  to 
inquire  what  was  the  intention  of  those  who  enacted  the  law." 

Congress  could  not  repeal  the  charter  in  a  direct  act.  It  is  a  well- 
known  legal  maxim,  that  what  cannot  be  done  directly,  cannot  be  done  indi- 
rectly. The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  has  held  that  the  institu- 
tion whose  rights  are  here  being  discussed  is  lawful  under  the  constitution  of 
the  State  creating  it,  and  is  also  such  an  institution  as  is  commended  to  the 
protection  of  that  provision  of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  which 
declares  that  no  State  shall  pass  a  law  impairing  the  obligation  of  a  contract. 
This  decision  brings  this  very  institution  forward  into  and  under  the  recog- 
nition and  protection  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  The  Federal 
Judiciary  upheld  this  institution  because  it  was  legally  bound  to  do  so.  The 
Federal  judiciary  was  exercising  Federal  jurisdiction  alone  when  it  made 
this  decision.  The  Congress  is  a  co-ordinate  department  of  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment. If  there  could  be  hostility,  which  it  is  denied  can  be,  between  Fed- 
eral agencies  and  State  agencies,  when  their  powers  are  properly  interpreted 
there  certainly  cannot  be  legal  hostility  between  different  departments  of  the 
Federal  Government.  If  there  is  a  constitutional  obligation  resting  upon 
the  Federal  judiciary  to  uphold  this  institution,  there  cannot  be  con- 
stitutional permission  in  Congress,  another  department  of  the  same 
government,  to  overthrow  the  institution.  One  department  of  the  Federal 
Government  must  certainly  act  consistently  with  the  other  departments. 
This  bill  would  deny  the  right  to  transmit  in  the  mails  of  the  United  States 
the  very  papers  upon  which  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  upholding 
the  institution,  was  rendered.  This  argument  does  not  extend  to  the  prop- 
osition that  because  one  State  has  given  birth  to  this  institution  that, 
therefore,  other  States  are  constitutionally  obliged  to  extend  their  hospitality 
to  it.  Each  State  has  supreme  power  over  its  own  morals  and  health,  and 
and  the  domestic  welfare  of  its  own  people,  and  each  State  may  exclude 
from  its  own  borders  anything  coming  from  another  State,  which 
impairs  the  health  and  morals,  or  welfare  of  the  people  of  that  State.  One 
State  cannot  exclude  cotton,  grain,  wheat  or  bacon  produced  in  another 
State,  because  the  admission  of  such  products  does  not  affect  the  health  or 
morals  or  welfare  of  the  people  of  the  State  seeking  to  exclude  them.  This 
argument  deals  alone  with  the  constitutional  relations  of  a  State  to  the 
Federal  Government,  and  not  to  the  relation  existing  between  State  and 
State.  It  is  admitted  that  each  State  in  its  domestic  concerns  is  independ- 
ent of  all  other  States.  But  the  Federal  Government  has  nothing  to  do 
legally  with  the  health  or  moral  status  of  a  State,  because  the  State  cannot 


11 

have  exclusive  jurisdiction  over  those  subjects  and  at  the  same  time  share 
that  jurisdiction  with  the  Federal  Government.  The  States  are  abundantly 
able  to  protect  themselves  in  this  respect.  This  was  illustrated  some  years 
since  in  an  application  made  by  the  people  of  Mississippi  to  the  Federal 
Government  to  exclude  from  the  mails  newspapers  which  advocated  the 
abolition  of  slavery.  The  Attorney  General's  Department  decided  that  the 
Federal  Government  could  not  search  the  mails  to  find  communications 
objectionable  to  the  people  of  different  States  and  cast  them  out  of  the 
mails  when  found.  That  that  was  no  part  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Federal 
Government,  but  that  each  State  determined  for  itself  what  was  hurtful  to 
it,  and  dealt  with  the  introduction  to  the  State  and  the  circulation  therein  of 
matters  deemed  hurtful ;  that  if  Mississippi  felt  aggrieved  by  the  circulation 
of  papers  claimed  to  be  incendiary  in  their  teachings,  Mississippi  could  sup- 
press the  circulation  of  such  papers  within  the  State,  if  any  power  existed 
anywhere  to  do  so,  and  that  the  Federal  Government  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  subject. 

There  is  a  growing  disposition  in  politics  to  look  with  indulgence  upon 
an  expansion  of  Federal  power,  though  such  expansion  correspondingly 
subtracts  from  the  constitutional  dignity  of  the  State.  This  disposition  is 
sometimes  expressed  in  the  statement  that  the  nation  should  be  spelled  with 
a  big  "N."  If  this  expression  is  intended  to  indicate  increasing  reverence 
for  the  Federal  Government,  the  "N"  cannot  be  too  large.  If,  however,  it 
signifies  that  the  Federal  Government  is  of  greater  constitutional  impor- 
tance than  the  States,  and  should  be  made  more  powerful  by  construction 
and  the  States  less  so,  there  is  no  Constitutional  support  for  this  disposi- 
tion. It  is  at  war  with  our  political  philosophy.  If  the  "N,"  which 
denotes  the  Federal  Government,  is  to  grow  in  size,  so  ought  the  "  S"  also, 
which  represents  the  States.  There  is  no  constitutional  warrant  for  chang- 
ing the  relation  between  the  different  hemispheres  of  State  and  Federal 
power  as  marked  off  and  defined  in  the  constitution  of  the  United  States. 
There  have  been,  under  other  systems  of  government,  methods  of  local 
administration.  This  Government  is  the  first,  however,  to  establish  inde- 
pendent and  sovereign  local  governments  wherein  supreme,  legislative, 
executive  and  judicial  power  over  domestic  affairs  is  established.  The  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  has  created  an  indestructible  Union  of  inde- 
structible States,  as  has  been  so  well  and  so  frequently  declared  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  It  is  held  by  that  great  tribunal  that 
while  the  States  might  survive  the  Union,  the  Union  could  not  survive  the 
States,  because  the  United  States  Government  was  a  Government  of  united, 
independent  and  sovereign  States.  Legislation  in  Congress  therefore, 
which  abridges  or  impairs  in  the  slightest  the  local  and  domestic  independ- 
ence of  the  States,  is  legislation  unjustified  by  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  indeed  prohibited  by  it.  The  United  States  Government 
cannot,  in  contemplation  of  law,  take  offense  at  any  institution  which  a 
State  has  the  power  to  create.  The  Federal  Government  has  no  power  to 
be  supercilious  with  or  to  turn  aside  from  an  institution  created  by  the 


12 

States.  So  long  as  a  State  Government  operates  within  its  exclusive  juris- 
diction it  cannot  be  suspected  of  wrong.  No  impurity  can  be  imputed  to 
the  institutions  which  it  has  the  legal  power  to  and  does  create. 

The  official  class  holding  offices  under  the  Federal  Government  are  but 
representatives  of  the  people  of  the  several  States.  They  cannot,  in  their 
n-pivsentative  capacity  assume  wisdom  greater  than  is  possessed  by  those 
who  elect  them  as  representatives.  Hence  there  is  no  legal  or  real  superiority 
in  the  Federal  Government  or  in  its  officers  which  endows  it  or  them  with 
constitutional  power  of  criticism,  or  of  censorship  of  what  the  States  may  do. 
If  there  be  a  difference  between  the  dignity  of  reserved  power  and  power 
granted,  that  difference  is  in  favor  of  power  reserved.  The  same  people 
who  granted  power  to  the  Federal  Government  reserved  certain  other  power 
to  themselves,  feeling  that  they  could  use  the  power  not  granted  more 
advantageously  to  themselves  than  if  they  had  granted  it.  That  was  the 
reason  for  reserving  it.  The  source  from  which  power  springs  is  higher  in 
law  than  the  instruments  to  which  power  is  granted,  and  hence  all  the  cur- 
en  ts  of  presumption  run  in  favor  of  the  superiority  of  the  people  and  of  the 
power  reserved  by  them.  It  is  illogical,  unreasonable  and  unconstitutional 
to  hold  that  power  granted  to  the  Federal  Government  can  be  legally  used  to 
impair  the  efficiency  of  institutions  legally  springing  from  the  power  reserved. 

JKKKERSON  CHANDLER. 


